The report that never arrived
A chain of shops sends its sales figures to a central store each night. One evening the store stops working. It stays off for five hours. Managers cannot see their numbers and order the wrong stock. Some staff complain loudly.
The cause was small: a disk with no spare. Today you learn why firms pay to avoid nights like this.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Resilience | the ability to keep working, or recover fast, after a fault or attack |
| Downtime | time when a system cannot be used |
| Vulnerability | a weak spot that an attacker could use |
| Encryption | scrambling data so only the right people can read it |
| Reputation | what people think of an organisation |
| Brand | the name, logo and image of an organisation |
| GDPR | the UK law on how information about people must be looked after |
| Network | devices joined so they can share things |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can explain how resilient systems help an organisation and its clients.
Starter
Have a go
Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
A resilient system is more secure
A resilient system protects data in storage: it is encrypted, backed up and kept behind strong access rules. It protects data in transfer too, with encryption on every link, so nobody can read it on the way.
It also has fewer vulnerabilities. Updates and tidy settings close weak spots before an attacker finds them.
It protects reputation
People judge a firm by how it behaves when things go wrong. A service that is down, or that loses data, harms its brand. Clients tell friends and news spreads fast.
A firm that stays up and keeps data safe keeps its clients' trust. It also avoids fines under GDPR if data about people is lost.
It cuts downtime
Downtime costs money. Work stops. Staff sit idle but are still paid. Support lines fill with calls. Extra work follows to fix it.
Spare parts, copies of data and clear recovery steps make a fault small and short. The service comes back in minutes, not days.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.