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How to easily calculate your system availability (uptime).

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We all have managers and ALL managers love that little word called metrics, and ALL managers like to know that their service has 99.99% uptime.  So how can you easily get this information off a Windows server?  Well there is a simple tool out there called uptime.exe.

To get the uptime of a server use: Uptime.exe /s <servername>.  If the system log has "wrapped" then your not going to get the events you need to get a good uptime report from the beginning.  Uptime will show you each reboot and then at the bottom report give you valuable data that you can then put in a nice spreadsheet and send up to management. 

Perhaps I should start a new section called metrics, because there are quite a few other easy things you can do to get relevant information to managers...

 

C:\localbin>uptime /s brad-dc-02
Uptime Report for: \\brad-dc-02

Current OS: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Service Pack 1, Multiprocessor Free.
Time Zone: Pacific Daylight Time

System Events as of 4/24/2007 10:27:16 AM:

Date: Time: Event: Comment:
---------- ----------- ------------------- -----------------------------------
2/5/2007 1:50:11 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:54s
2/5/2007 2:01:34 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:0d 0h:11m:23s
2/5/2007 2:03:30 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:56s
2/5/2007 2:11:31 PM Abnormal Shutdown Prior uptime:0d 0h:8m:1s
2/5/2007 2:15:30 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:3m:59s
2/5/2007 2:15:31 PM Bluescreen STOP 0x0000000a
2/6/2007 12:22:12 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:0d 22h:6m:42s
2/6/2007 12:23:57 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:45s
2/12/2007 1:08:06 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:6d 0h:44m:9s
2/12/2007 1:09:54 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:48s
2/12/2007 1:54:09 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:0d 0h:44m:15s
2/12/2007 1:55:57 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:48s
2/12/2007 2:15:49 PM Service Pack Service Pack 3 removed
2/12/2007 2:16:21 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:0d 0h:20m:24s
2/12/2007 2:18:05 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:44s
2/12/2007 2:31:20 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:0d 0h:13m:15s
2/12/2007 2:33:06 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:46s
2/12/2007 2:45:34 PM Service Pack Service Pack 3 removed
2/12/2007 2:48:06 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:0d 0h:15m:0s
2/12/2007 2:50:29 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:2m:23s
2/24/2007 12:09:42 AM Shutdown Prior uptime:11d 9h:19m:13s
2/24/2007 12:12:13 AM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:2m:31s
3/27/2007 12:26:16 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:31d 11h:14m:3s
3/27/2007 12:27:57 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:41s
4/7/2007 12:04:53 AM Shutdown Prior uptime:10d 11h:36m:56s
4/7/2007 12:07:20 AM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:2m:27s
4/20/2007 9:45:10 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:13d 21h:37m:50s
4/20/2007 9:47:11 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:2m:1s

Current System Uptime: 3 day(s), 12 hour(s), 40 minute(s), 38 second(s)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since 11/3/2005:

System Availability: 99.9860%
Total Uptime: 460d 5h:51m:10s
Total Downtime: 0d 1h:48m:13s
Total Reboots: 31
Mean Time Between Reboots: 17.31 days
Total Bluescreens: 1

 If you only want to see the uptime for the last 30 days then you can use the p: switch, there are other switches too.

C:\localbin>uptime /s brad-dc-01 /p:30
Uptime Report for: \\brad-dc-01

Current OS: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Service Pack 1, Multiprocessor Free.
Time Zone: Pacific Daylight Time

System Events as of 4/24/2007 10:28:53 AM:

Date: Time: Event: Comment:
---------- ----------- ------------------- -----------------------------------
3/27/2007 12:26:16 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:31d 11h:14m:3s
3/27/2007 12:27:57 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:1m:41s
4/7/2007 12:04:53 AM Shutdown Prior uptime:10d 11h:36m:56s
4/7/2007 12:07:20 AM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:2m:27s
4/20/2007 9:45:10 PM Shutdown Prior uptime:13d 21h:37m:50s
4/20/2007 9:47:11 PM Boot Prior downtime:0d 0h:2m:1s

Current System Uptime: 3 day(s), 12 hour(s), 42 minute(s), 14 second(s)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since 3/25/2007: (Last 30 Days)

System Availability: 99.9860%
Total Uptime: 30d 10h:22m:44s
Total Downtime: 0d 0h:6m:9s
Total Reboots: 3
Mean Time Between Reboots: 10.15 days
Total Bluescreens: 0

 

Technorati tags: Windows, Vista, Windows 2003

 

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Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2008
    I found this posting very useful, you made my manager happy!  Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2014
    I think the new Windows versions (Windows 7 and up) does not log all the necessary information for this to work. The mentioned Knowledge Base article does not contain link to this version, but an other more simple one which is able to show the uptime from the last boot time. When somebody want information about system uptime for a given time period and not only from the last boot time, try this vbscript: https://uptimevbs.codeplex.com/

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2014
    Beheehive

  • Anonymous
    June 09, 2015
    How can i get System Availability like month,quarter wise using uptime.exe