Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

IT downtime can effect businesses of all sizes. From online retailers and event promoters to cloud-based service providers and 24/7 security teams, all modern businesses are at risk of facing both monetary and organizational costs that can stack up in a matter of minutes. Users (internal and external) may not be able to access websites and files, digital transactions may be delayed, data may be lost, and sensitive information may be compromised, which can make for a very bad day at the office.

The idea behind an escalation matrix is simple: the situation requires greater authority to resolve. Authority can take many forms, including experience with a particular toolset or simply the proper permissions to flip the right switches. Therefore, escalation must involve putting the proper information into the right person’s hands (well, device).

As IT and DevOps teams rely more heavily on third-party services, the likelihood of an external incident affecting your customers increases. The 2017 Amazon S3 outage comes to mind as a particularly large downtime event that took thousands of websites down with it. When things go wrong with either an internal or external service, the right people need to be alerted to properly respond to the issue and communicate with customers.