The shop that went dark on Friday
An online shop sells trainers. On Friday evening, its website stops working. It stays off for six hours. Customers cannot buy. Some post angry comments. A few never come back.
The cause was small: a disk that nobody had a spare for. Today you learn why firms spend money to avoid days 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 site that is down, or that loses data, harms its brand. Customers tell friends. News spreads fast.
A firm that stays up, and keeps data safe, keeps its customers' trust. It also avoids fines under GDPR if data about people is lost.
It cuts downtime
Downtime costs money. Sales stop. 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.