References:
ISO20000: Section 6.3: Service continuity and availability management
COBIT: Deliver and Support DS4: Ensure continuous service
Comments:
Forward Looking Design Considerations:
Availability and Service Continuity are very closely intertwined. Designing a high availability system solution for a critical business service/application will reduce the amount of effort required in Service Continuity for that application. Designing a low availability system solution for a critical business service/application, e.g. single server in one location may require significant investment in service continuity planning. The answer is to develop a design policy that maps all business service/applications to levels of business criticality which in turn attract a hosting system design solution which includes the correct level of service continuity. For example all business applications graded at the highest level of business criticality must have a duplex hosting solution across two data centers with multiple network access. In small and medium organizations an infrastructure design policy of this type cannot be accommodated due to cost implications, in this environment more investment must be made in Service Continuity Planning.
Tactical Availability:
Business service/application availability should be negotiated as part of the Service Level Agreement of any service. Application availability is usually expressed as a percentage of 'in service' hours, e.g, 97%. Historically availability has been a hardware measure and related to the availability of the system hardware only. It is now becoming a service measure which relates to the availability of the business service/application at the user interface. This change in requirement is currently causing a few headaches for reporting staff since it is difficult to measure across all the IT elements that make up the service.
Service Continuity:
Service Continuity does not relate to normal outage situations whether planned or remedial although it is wise to determine in advance at what stage a remedial outage may turn into a service continuity situation, e.g after x days of non availability. Service Continuity typically relates to catastrophic failure, flood, fire etc. so it includes Disaster Recovery.
Some business service/applications are so critical to the ongoing effectiveness of the business that their removal from service can create major business crises. In the absence of high resilience systems solutions significant investment in Service Continuity Planning must take place to ensure these business services/application can be recovered quickly. Each business service/application should be assessed and assigned a level of service continuity planning depending on its impact on the business. Service Continuity Plans should be developed for all business services/applications that are considered to be critical to the business.
Business Continuity:
IT Service Continuity is part of Business Continuity which looks at the wider picture of how to keep the business going following major catastrophes.
Supporting PCAP Products available in the SHOP:
1: Service Continuity Management Procedure
2: Continuity Manager Job Description
Visit the PCAP Store for Freeware and Demo Documents: http://www.pcap.co.uk
Visit the IT Service Continuity Shop Area: Click Here
Last edited on Tue May 13th, 2008 12:33 pm by bobmckean
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