Component Failure Impact Analysis

Availability Management balances business availability requirements against the associated costs.

So, should we consider availability requirements before the service has been designed and implemented or after? The Availability Management process should begin in the Service Strategy stage of the lifecycle and continue in each stage of the service lifecycle. Availability Management ensures that the design approach takes two distinctive but related perspectives. Designing for availability focuses on all aspects of the technical design of the IT service. Designing for recovery ensures that in the event of a service failure, the business can resume normal operations at normal as quickly as possible. One of the techniques that can be invaluable to both perspectives is the Component Failure Impact Analysis (CFIA).

The CFIA can be used to predict and evaluate the impact a component failure can have on its related IT service. This activity identifies areas of weakness or fragility within our technical infrastructure and how additional resilience would improve the service. This technique can also be used to identify the impact and dependencies on IT support skills, competencies and the ability to support a new IT service.

The output from the CFIA helps to ensure that the design of the IT service can prevent or minimize the impact of a component failure to business operations and users. CFIA achieves this by identifying these critical areas:

Single points of failure (SPOF)
Impact of component failure on the business operations and users
Component and people dependencies
Component recovery times
Identify and document recovery options
Identify risk reduction measures

The ITIL Service Design book provides good detail on how to perform and score a Component Impact Analysis.

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