Abstract - Critical systems and data centers are immeasurably more reliable than they were two or three decades ago. Despite this, Uptime Institute's research finds that major failures are not only still common, but that the consequences are high, and possibly higher than in the past - a result of our high reliance on IT systems in all aspects of life. The findings discussed in this report help to extend the industry's understanding of the type, range, causes, and extent of outages, providing some lessons.