For many companies, the cost per hour of downtime is measured in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. TechWise Research conducted this eye-opening study Are Some RISC-Based Clusters More Secure Than Others? to probe specifically into the area of cluster security. The purpose was to better understand the differences between HP, IBM and Sun cluster security costs. Extensive executive telephone interviews were conducted and availability data were examined in detail, specifically in the area of crashes caused by security-related incidents. In addition, a detailed analysis of the CERT® Coordination Center’s database that tracks security vulnerabilities and threats was performed. Lastly, TechWise Research studied the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database to provide standardized names and descriptions for information security vulnerabilities and exposures.