T 0.27 Lack of Resources
If the available resources in a given area are insufficient, bottlenecks may occur in the supply serviced by these resources or even congestion and failures. Depending on the type of resources concerned, even a small event that was actually predicted to happen, can in the end affect a large amount of business processes. Lack of resources may occur in IT operations and communications, but also in other areas of an institution. This can lead to a variety of negative effects if for certain tasks, insufficient personnel, time and financial resources are made available. It can happen, for example, that the necessary roles in projects are not filled with qualified people. If resources such as hardware or software do not sufficiently meet the requirements, under certain circumstances technical tasks cannot be successfully processed.
Personnel, time, financial, technical and other shortages in normal operation can often be compensated for, for a limited period however. Under extreme time pressure though, for example in emergency situations, they become even more obvious.
Resources can also be deliberately overloaded, if someone intentionally generates an intense need for a resource and thus provokes an intense and persistent impairment of this resource (see also T 0.40 Denial of Service).
Examples:
- Overloaded electrical wires heat up which, in an unfavourable installation layout, can lead to smouldering.
- When new applications in the network have higher bandwidth requirements than it was assumed at the time of planning, this can result in loss of availability of the entire network, if the network infrastructure does not scale in an adequate measure.
- If due to overwork, the administrators only sporadically check the log files of the equipment they administer, possible attacks will not be detected promptly.
- Web servers can become so overloaded by a large amount of simultaneous incoming requests that controlled access to data is almost impossible.
- If a company is subject to insolvency proceedings, it may happen that there is no money for urgently needed spare parts or those essential service providers cannot be paid.