Availability

The availability category ensures that the information and systems that a service organization provides to their clients is available for operation and use as agreed upon. The availability category typically applies to service organizations providing colocation, data center, or hosting services to their clients.

The availability category consists of the complete set of common criteria, as well the following additional criteria:

• Does the service organization monitor and evaluate processing capacity and have a way to implement additional capacity if needed? • Does the service organization design, develop, configure, document, test, authorize, and implement environment protections, software, back-up processes, and recovery infrastructure in support of business objectives? • Does the service organization test system recovery plan procedures?