S 6.100 Drawing up a business continuity plan for VoIP failure

Initiation responsibility: Head of IT, IT Security Officer

Implementation responsibility: Administrator

In many cases, the partial or complete failure of the VoIP architecture has serious consequences because telephony is usually the most important service in an organisation. A failure can have many causes. In addition to the typical VoIP problems, the malfunction of individual network components can lead to the complete failure of the VoIP service.

When drawing up the business continuity plan, it is therefore necessary to draw up a concept detailing how the effects of a failure can be minimised and which actions need to be taken in case of a failure.

The following aspects must be taken into account in this regard:

• The contingency planning for virtualisation systems must be integrated into the existing business continuity plan (see also module S 1.3 Business continuity management).
• Telecommunication must still be possible even when the VoIP system fails. For this reason, it must be determined if communication is still possible in an emergency (to at least be able to contact the police or fire service). In addition, it must be possible to inform an (external) support service provider quickly of the failure so that the problem can be eliminated. When a failure occurs, mobile telephones can be used for communication, for example.
• Data may also be lost due to the failure of a system. For this reason, rules must be made for the VoIP components in the framework of the general data backup policy (see also S 1.4 Data Backup Policy). These rules must not only take the VoIP middleware itself into account, but also the end devices and the settings specified by the users, for example in telephone books.
• Precautions must be taken in case an IT system on which a softphone is operated needs to be repaired. If the users need to be reached by telephone to do their jobs, then the corresponding safeguards must be implemented.

Review questions:

• Is there a regulation regarding a contingency plan for failure of the VoIP service?
• Are there corresponding business continuity plans for the IT systems depending on and/or required for operation of the VoIP service?
• Failure of the VoIP service: Is there a redundant communication facility over dedicated channels or lines?
• Is there a regulation regarding a data backup concept of the affected VoIP components?
• Failure of the VoIP service: Are there redundant communication facilities which can be used by the users to do their jobs?