Impact Tolerance

1. Impact Tolerance is setting the maximum tolerable level of disruption to a critical or important business service.

Impact Tolerance:

Notes (1): represents the point beyond which the harm caused by an operational disruption to the business service becomes intolerable.

Notes (2): do not factor in the frequency at which operational disruptions are likely to occur.

Notes (3): focus on limiting the impact the organisation can tolerate from a single disruption.

Notes (4): is different from the recovery time objective, and the maximum acceptable outage as defined in business continuity planning as these are time-based.

Notes (5): focus on outcome-based objectives: how much, when, and for how long.

Notes (6): should relate to a single disruption as the concept is designed to identify how quickly an organisation can restore delivery of important or critical business service after an operational disruption.

Notes (7): in another view by the Monetary Authority of Singapore is the Service Recovery Time Objective (SRTO) which is the target duration of time to restore a specific business service from the point of disruption to the point when the specific business service is recovered to a level sufficient to meet business obligations.

Notes (8): should not set at excessively high levels. Regulatory authorities will perceive that this organisation is able to manage its service continuity for all scenarios without any investment.

Impact Tolerance Versus Recovery Time Objective

Notes (1): Impact Tolerances are expressed by reference to specific outcomes and metrics and differ from the recovery time objective (RTO) and the maximum acceptable outage as defined in business continuity planning, as these are time-based.

Reading for OR Course Participant: Impact Tolerance Vs Recovery Time Objective