T 0.10 Failure or Disruption of Mains Supply

In a building there are a variety of networks used for basic supply and disposal services and, as such, form a basis for all of an institution's business processes, including IT. Examples of such supply networks are:

• power,
• telephone,
• cooling,
• heating or ventilation,
• water and sewage,
• supply of fire fighting water,
• gas,
• alarm and control systems (e.g. for burglary, fire, housekeeping control engineering) and
• intercoms.

A failure or disruption of a supply network can lead to a situation where, amongst other things, people cannot work in the building any more or IT operation and hence information processing is impaired.

Certain networks are dependent on each other to varying degrees so that operational disruptions in individual networks can also have an effect on others.

Examples:

• A failure of heating or ventilation can have the consequence that all employees must leave the affected buildings. This can, under certain circumstances, result in high losses.
• The failure of a power supply does not only directly affect IT but also all other networks which are equipped with electrical automatic controls. Even in sewage lines, electrical lifting pumps are used in some circumstances.
• A failure of the water supply may affect the proper function of air-conditioning systems.