Nines

The colloquial term nines are used in engineering to indicate reliability or purity (or similar quantitative descriptor). It is preceded by a number indicating the degree of such reliability or purity. For example, 0.999 (or 99.9 percent) pure silver would be 3 nines pure. Or, for example, electricity that is delivered without interruptions (blackouts, brownouts or surges) 99.999 percent of the time would have 5 nines reliability. Reliability can be considered a time-based purity. Also related are the topics of defect rates, Parts-per notation, MTBF and MTTR. * For monthly calculations, a 30-day month is used Nines one nine two nines three nines four nines five nines six nines Availability 0.9 0.99 0.999 0.9999 0.99999 0.999999 % 90% 99% 99.9% Downtime per year 36.5 days 3.65 days 8.76 hours Downtime per month* 72 hours 7.20 hours 43.2 minutes 4.32 minutes 25.9 seconds 2.59 seconds Downtime per week 16.8 hours 1.68 hours 10.1 minutes 1.01 minutes 6.05 seconds 0.605 seconds

99.99% 52.56 minutes 99.999% 5.26 minutes 99.9999% 31.5 seconds