Availability
Availability is the ability of a system to be operational and accessible when needed, encompassing uptime, performance, and the capacity to handle expected workloads.
In Depth
Availability goes beyond simple uptime to consider whether the system is performing well enough to be useful. A system can be 'up' but so slow that it's effectively unavailable. True availability means the system is not only running but responding within acceptable latency thresholds, handling the current load without degradation, and providing full functionality.
High availability (HA) architectures use redundancy, load balancing, and automatic failover to minimize downtime. For AI-powered customer support, availability means AI agents respond within seconds across all channels, knowledge searches return results quickly, and integrations with external systems function reliably. Availability is typically measured as a percentage and guaranteed through SLAs.
Related Terms
Uptime
Uptime is the percentage of time a system or service is operational and available, typically measured over a month or year and expressed as a percentage like 99.9%.
Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery (DR) is the set of policies, tools, and procedures designed to restore critical business systems and data after a catastrophic event like hardware failure, cyberattack, or natural disaster.
Scalability
Scalability is the ability of a system to handle increased workload by adding resources, either by upgrading existing hardware (vertical) or adding more machines (horizontal).
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