Downtime is the period when a computer system, website, or service is unavailable or not functioning properly. Downtime can be planned (scheduled maintenance, upgrades, or testing) or unplanned (hardware failures, software bugs, cyberattacks, or infrastructure problems). For government services, downtime prevents citizens from accessing online applications, making payments, obtaining information, or conducting transactions. Organizations track uptime percentages as reliability measures—99.9% uptime still means 8.76 hours of downtime annually. To minimize downtime impacts, government IT operations implement redundant systems, backup procedures, disaster recovery plans, and service level agreements with vendors. When downtime occurs, organizations typically post status updates explaining the issue and expected resolution. Scheduling planned maintenance during low-usage periods (overnight, weekends) reduces citizen impact.