In large utility companies particularly those that are part

In large utility companies, particularly those that are part of Critical National Infrastructure, the risk of outage has impact on all IT functions, particularly because the cause of an outage can lead to severe regulatory penalties (NERC, 2016), in addition to fiscal loss and the loss of reputation among customers. Properly implemented disaster recovery procedures designed to ensure redundancy can help to mitigate this risk. Enterprise Architecture has a key role in the management of risk in this area by defining what the appropriate response mechanisms should be (Bente, S. 2012). Being able to respond to an outage is extremely important in the utility industry, and this is accomplished through various Industrial Control Systems, which are designed perform fail over and isolation of electrical circuits in the event of a outage.

EA within the utility industry helps to define what systems are critical to the response of an outage, and what the appropriate measures are to ensure the redundancy of those systems. These standards and procedures are socialized to the entire enterprise and in my own organization, enforced through the use of business impact assessments which determine what risk management controls are required to be implemented for a particular system or process.

References:

Bente, S, et. Al (2012) Collaborative Enterprise Architecture

North American Electric Reliability Corporation (2016). Compliance and Enforcement. Retrieved from: http://www.nerc.com/pa/comp/Pages/default.aspx

Solution

Compliance Monitoring is the process used in order to measure compliance with NERC Reliability Standards. are to assess, to investigate, to evaluate, toaudit.

Monitoring Standards are developed, adopted, and approved through the Reliability Standards Development program

Monitoring standard are placed into effect pursuant to FERC orders or to applicable authorities in other North American jurisdictions.

Compliance Enforcement is the process by which NERC issues sanctions and ensures mitigation of confirmed violations of mandatory NERC Reliability Standards.