Title: 4.1 - How to Determine What is Mission Critical
Course: Introduction to Mission Critical > Section: Introduction to Mission Critical

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How to Determine What is Mission Critical

The time to determine what is truly mission critical is before something bad happens. Having a plan in place to handle situations when things get desperate is preferable to having to make numerous split second decisions without the time to research the facts before deciding. Certain aspects of a business or a system simply make doing business and achieving the mission easier but are just important and not mission critical.

Things that come to mind when we think of mission critical operations are computerized medical records, data storage centers, or emergency call centers. These are not the only types of mission critical business situations that exist, however. In business or industry reliant on mainframe computers or workstations, databases, process control software, process control servers, and other IT aspects are considered mission critical.

Mission critical is defined as a factor of a system whose failure will result in the failure of business operations [2]. In other words if it is something that is critical to an organization’s mission, it is called mission critical.
Some of the ways to determine whether or not a certain aspect of a business or industry is indeed mission critical are:
- Serious injury or loss of life
- Fines or penalties of amounts prohibitory to a profit
- Regulatory requirements not met
- Major direct loss of revenue
- Severe customer dissatisfaction