Understanding Uptime and SLA Reports
Uptime is one of the most important metrics for any online service. Here’s how we calculate it and how to use it effectively.
What Is Uptime?
Uptime is the percentage of time your service was available over a given period. It’s calculated as:
Uptime % = (Total time - Downtime) / Total time × 100
For example, if your service was down for 1 hour in a 30-day month (720 hours):
Uptime = (720 - 1) / 720 × 100 = 99.86%
Uptime Standards
Here’s what different uptime levels mean in real terms:
| Uptime % | Downtime per Month | Downtime per Year |
|---|---|---|
| 99.9% | ~43 minutes | ~8.7 hours |
| 99.95% | ~22 minutes | ~4.4 hours |
| 99.99% | ~4.3 minutes | ~52 minutes |
| 99.999% | ~26 seconds | ~5 minutes |
Most businesses aim for 99.9% or higher.
Viewing Uptime Statistics
On each monitor’s detail page, you’ll find:
- Current uptime - Percentage over the last 30 days
- Response time graph - Historical performance trends
- Uptime bars - Visual day-by-day availability
- Downtime log - List of outages with duration
SLA Reports
SLA (Service Level Agreement) reports provide detailed uptime documentation. These are useful for:
- Internal reporting - Share with management
- Customer commitments - Prove SLA compliance
- Trend analysis - Spot reliability patterns
Generating an SLA Report
- Go to your monitor’s detail page
- Click SLA Report or Generate Report
- Select the date range
- Download or view the report
What Affects Uptime?
Your calculated uptime includes:
| Counts as Downtime | Does NOT Count |
|---|---|
| Failed monitor checks | Scheduled maintenance (if configured) |
| Timeout errors | Paused monitors |
| HTTP error codes (5xx) | Checks during planned windows |
Reading the Uptime Chart
The uptime chart on your status page shows:
- Green bars - Service was fully available that day
- Yellow bars - Partial outage or degradation
- Red bars - Significant downtime occurred
- Gray bars - No data (monitor wasn’t active)
Hover over any bar to see exact numbers.
Improving Your Uptime
| Strategy | How It Helps |
|---|---|
| Use multiple servers | Redundancy prevents single points of failure |
| Add load balancing | Distributes traffic across servers |
| Monitor proactively | Catch issues before users notice |
| Set up alerts | Respond faster to outages |
| Review trends | Find patterns and fix root causes |
Exporting Uptime Data
You can export your uptime data for external analysis:
- Go to Data Export
- Select the monitors and date range
- Download in your preferred format