What IT teams need to know about service continuity

IT service continuity is just one piece of the broader business continuity puzzle. While business continuity focuses on keeping the whole organization resilient during disruptions, be they natural disasters or cyberattacks, IT service continuity zeroes in on keeping critical IT services up and running. A strong plan here isn’t just about recovery but it’s about being prepared, staying responsive, and minimizing downtime when it matters most.

IT service continuity isn’t just for major disasters. It covers a whole range of disruptions, from a power outage at your primary data center to something as simple as a local server crash. In one case, you might shift operations to a secondary site, and in another, you might rely on manual work-arounds to keep things running.

In both cases, having predefined, tested procedures that help teams respond fast and effectively is part of IT service continuity plans. The goal is simple: minimize disruption, and get back to business as usual with minimal impact.

It’s not a one-time plan either. IT service continuity is a continuous, evolving process. One of the most well-regarded frameworks for this was developed by the Department of Homeland Security and Carnegie Mellon University.

• Establish an IT service continuity program.
• Build service continuity plans.
• Validate, and run tests of the IT service continuity plans.
• Continually improve IT service continuity.

So, what’s the real difference between major incident management and IT service continuity management (ITSCM)?

After all, both deal with big disruptions, such as server outages, data center failures, and major IT issues that impact the whole organization.

The key difference lies in the approach.

Major incident management is all about rapid, reactive responses to unexpected events. It's the frontline response team jumping in to restore services right away.

IT service continuity, on the other hand, is proactive. It’s about planning ahead for known risks, such as a power failure at a data center, and executing predefined strategies to keep the business running with minimal downtime.

Major incident management	IT service continuity management
Major incident management deals with high-impact IT infrastructure issues that were unforeseen and haven't brought the entire organization to a halt.	ITSCM plans only come into play when there’s a big disaster. Each organization decides for itself what counts as a disaster and what doesn’t.
The major incident response team is reactive in nature. They’re all about jumping in and fixing things ASAP.	ITSCM is more on the proactive side. It is about putting safeguards and plans in place so large-scale disruptions or crises can be avoided or at least handled smoothly.

Like we saw earlier, IT service continuity is a cyclical process, and it typically follows the four major steps mentioned above:

Step 1: Gain support for an IT service continuity program

• Secure buy-in from senior leadership: Building an IT service continuity plan isn’t something IT can do in isolation. It takes cross-functional input, alignment, and resources from across the organization. That’s why it’s critical to get senior leadership buy-in early. When leadership is on board, they can champion the effort, unlock the necessary resources, and assign accountability across teams.
• Define the scope and objectives: Start with a scoping statement that covers the mission-critical services. As the continuity program matures, you can gradually expand it to cover more services. A well-maintained CMDB would come in handy here to prioritize the mission-critical services, include service owners, identify the dependencies with external vendors, and more especially to conduct a business impact analysis (BIA).
• Develop policies and standards: Set the groundwork with clear policies, structured documentation, and a defined framework for how IT service continuity will function. This should include organizational charts, short- and long-term objectives, risk assessments, BIA procedures and templates, vendor coordination plans, and any supporting materials needed to ensure continuity plans run smoothly.

Step 2: Build the actual IT service continuity plan

• Get the basics of the plan right: Before tackling niche scenarios, make sure your IT service continuity plan covers the essentials. For instance, the plan must have these following basics before moving forward with advanced recovery procedures.
  • Key contacts and roles along with back ups in case the primary person is unavailable
  • Redundant location or system architecture
  • Recovery procedures
  • Clear criteria on when the plan should be triggered
  • Dependencies on third parties
  • Legal, regulatory, and compliance related issues
  • Communication protocols
• Set up a secure access repository: Store your IT service continuity plans in a location that’s accessible even during disruptions or emergencies. At the same time, enforce strict access controls to ensure only authorized personnel can view or modify the content.

Step 3: Validate and exercise continuity plans

• Review and test plans regularly: Continuity plans should be revisited and tested whenever there are changes in IT infrastructure or organizational structure that could affect recovery. Regular drills help uncover gaps, overlaps, and resource issues. A couple of best practices for this include the following:
  • Critical services may need testing quarterly, while other parts of the plan can be validated annually.
  • Simulate real-world communication and coordination, which should involve every stakeholder, vendors, and even customers if needed.
• Document and analyze results: As a natural next step, document any performance issues, failure points, or resource bottlenecks identified during tests or real incidents. Conduct after-action reviews not just after drills but also following actual disruptions. These insights are key to evolving and strengthening your continuity plans over time.

Step 4: Improve the program continuously

• Use metrics and KPIs: Define KPIs that align with your organization’s structure and goals. Common metrics include plan efficacy, coverage across services, actual recovery times, and how often recovery time targets are met. These help you measure what’s working and what needs work.
• Stay on top of potential threats: Whether it’s ransomware, vendor-related disruptions, or an approaching storm, regularly assess if your current continuity plan can handle the impact. This mindset shouldn’t just surface during reviews—it needs to become part of the everyday thinking across teams. Continuity planning is as much a culture as it is a process.

IT service continuity plans have several components, and a lot of them can’t really be put together properly unless you already have a solid ITSM framework in place. Even if your plan looks good on paper, it can fall apart fast if your organization isn’t managing services using something proven like ITIL®.

Let’s dive a little deeper into why a solid ITSCM setup really depends on having strong ITSM practices in place. There’s more to it than just having backup plans lying around.

An IT service continuity plan consists of three major components:

• BIA
• Recovery plans
• Regular testing and updates

And each of these parts leans on other core ITSM processes to work right.

1. Developing the BIA

One of the initial steps in any ITSCM plan is running a BIA and putting together risk mitigation plans. The BIA helps spot critical failure points in your IT environment that could seriously impact operations.

• Service configuration management: The goal of service configuration management is to keep track of all the infrastructure relationships and the system dependencies in the CMDB. With real-time relationship and dependency maps, IT admins can clearly see the potential impact of a failure. This level of visibility makes BIA results far more precise and reliable.
• Measurement and reporting: Every efficient service desk team monitors KPIs, adjusts operations based on regular reporting, and uses forecasting to prepare for future workloads. These forecasts help identify potential risks in advance. For example, if trends indicate that an application server is likely to experience heavy load in June, IT administrators can proactively deploy additional load balancers, guided by the impact analysis from the CMDB’s dependency maps. These are also a part of the risk mitigation measures ensuring service continuity.

2. Input for recovery plans

• Availability management: Since the ITOM team typically owns availability management, ITSCM teams rely on their expertise for critical systems like backup servers. By aligning recovery plans with ITOM’s standardized procedures, ITSCM efforts are more likely to result in smooth, timely restorations when disruptions occur
• Problem management: Teams that maintain a known error database as part of their problem management practice gain an added advantage. If a component issue or infrastructure problem impacts the recovery process, the database is updated accordingly. The service continuity team can then update their recovery plans and workarounds based on that information.

3. Testing and updating recovery plans

• Capacity management: Capacity management focuses on ensuring that the IT infrastructure can meet customer requirements and planning for scaling as resources approach full utilization. This is especially helpful during recovery simulations where services will operate at reduced capacity during a disaster. The capacity management team defines how services will operate at reduced capacity during a disaster. Naturally, the fallback systems and the reduced capacity must be tested during recovery simulations to ensure it matches SLAs with customers.
• Change management: As the IT infrastructure undergoes frequent changes, the recovery process may need adjustments. To save the service continuity team time during a crisis, any change that affects the recovery plan needs to be flagged and updated right away. Including service continuity stakeholders in change advisory board meetings helps ensure that recovery times for critical systems remain unaffected.