The Standard

Scope and Objectives

• IT Service Continuity (ITSCM) is a process to manage key risks that seriously impact IT services and technical facilities such as Server systems, networks, applications, database systems, telecommunications, etc. ITSCM ensures, that besides such a disaster, the IT Provider is enabled to provision the previously agreed minimal service level for a disaster situation. It is important to know, that there is a major difference between regular Service Levels and the ITSCM service levels. During a disaster a totally different classification schema is applied called Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
• This is due to the fact, that the primary objective of ITSCM is to maintain continuity of only the most critical services that have previously agreed and invested in for high availability during disasters. This means, only customers most critical business processes are usually supported during a disaster situation and less critical services are being restored later over time.
• A disaster in ITSCM is of major effect. Many may think of the most important financial application not being available means a disaster But in ITSCM we need to think a dimension bigger. A disaster is the total breakdown or a data center or a big part of the IT resources is no longer usable for months due to a fire, continuous loss of power (e.g. a week), etc…
• Therefore it is key to identify as a business the most crucial damage scenarios and based on them identify the most important Business processes that must be supported by IT resources besides any planable disaster.
• In such disaster or emergency situations, an emergency Team activates the IT Service Continuity & Service Recovery plan. An Emergency Manager is appointed and manages the emergency situations that were planned for or which were not planned for.