Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience
Service management
Know the service management distinctions: incident management restores service quickly; problem management finds and eliminates root cause; change, release and configuration management (with a CMDB) control the environment. Service level agreements are with customers, operational level agreements are internal, underpinning contracts are with vendors. Incident priority = impact × urgency. Capacity and performance are monitored against agreed service targets.
Operations controls
Job scheduling must be authorized and separated from operations duties. Console and operator logs are reviewed independently. Backups: full, incremental (since last backup of any type) and differential (since last full); only a successful restore test proves a backup works. Media rotate offsite and are retained per legal and regulatory requirements. Source code lives in a controlled library with versioning and restricted production access.
Resilience
A business impact analysis identifies critical processes, dependencies, maximum tolerable downtime, RTO (how long until restoration) and RPO (how much data loss is tolerable). Strategies include hot, warm and cold sites, reciprocal agreements, mobile sites and cloud failover. DR testing escalates in rigor: checklist → structured walk-through/tabletop → simulation → parallel test → full interruption. Auditors prefer parallel or full interruption but accept the most rigorous test management can sustain.
Traps
Confusing RTO with RPO; treating incident management as business continuity; believing a hot site removes the need for a BIA; assuming an untested plan provides assurance.
Rule of thumb
Sequence is always BIA → recovery strategy → plan → test → update.