Once the CBFs and processes have been identified, they need to be mapped to the actual IT systems. Then, the recovery options can be determined.

In the example of the shipment of products, three primary systems are involved. First, employees access the warehouse application, and, second, the warehouse application accesses the warehouse database. If either of these systems fails, the employees can’t identify the products to ship. The third system is a link between the web server accepting the orders and the database server. If this system fails, new orders can’t be identified or shipped.

The priority of these systems must then be identified, as shown in Table 12-5. The same scale as mentioned in Table 12-4 is used. A priority of 1 is the highest and 5 is the lowest. Shipments can’t occur if the database server or the warehouse application server fails. However, some delay in shipments is acceptable, so these systems are assigned a priority of 2.

If the connection with the web server is broken, new orders can’t be passed to the warehouse, but the warehouse workers can still process existing orders. Therefore, a priority of 3 is assigned to this connection.