Topic

Capacity and availability planning and monitoring for online services

Applicable to

all

History

Jun 2023

Cloud service providers’ ability to dynamically scale resources in response to a genuine spike in demand is discussed and verified as part of capacity and availability planning for online services.

The existing control relating to testing cloud service providers’ ability to dynamically scale resources due to a genuine spike in demand or a denial-of-service attack was amended to recommend discussing and verifying cloud service providers’ ability to dynamically scale resources in response to a genuine spike in demand – noting discussions on their capacity to withstand denial-of-service attacks, and any testing with the prior express consent of cloud service providers, is covered by control ISM-1431.

Dec 2021

Cloud service providers’ ability to dynamically scale resources due to a genuine spike in demand or a denial-of-service attack is tested as part of capacity planning processes for online services.

Miscellaneous changes were made to rationale and security controls throughout the publication. This included:

• A review from the Using the Information Security Manual chapter through to the Guidelines for Media chapter.

• Security controls suitable for all audiences have been identified with the ‘All’ applicability marking while additional security controls suitable for just government audiences have been identified with the O, P, S and TS applicability markings.

• Security controls suitable for specific classifications have been amended to include their classification(s) in the wording of the security controls to reduce the reliance on applicability markings to confer suitability.

• Tables in security controls have been converted into prose to allow for inclusion in the SSP annex template and the XML list of security controls.

• The use of ‘official’ and ‘highly classified’ terminology has been replaced with specific classifications to remove ambiguity.

• Security controls relating to high assurance ICT equipment have had their applicability narrowed to ‘S, TS’ reflecting that they are intended for the protection of SECRET and TOP SECRET systems and data.

Jul 2020

Cloud service providers’ ability to dynamically scale resources due to a genuine spike in demand or a denial-of-service attack is tested as part of capacity planning processes.

Security control 1579 was introduced to ensure the testing of service providers’ ability to dynamically scale resources in response to genuine demand spikes or denial-of-service attacks.