Supporting enterprises during IT outages: The role of Everbridge

By Lorenzo Marchetti, Everbridge Head of Global Public Affairs

In today’s digital landscape, enterprises heavily rely on their IT infrastructure for operational & business continuity. However, IT outages are inevitable and can disrupt business operations, leading to significant financial losses and reputational damage. Through its Everbridge 360 solution, Everbridge offers a comprehensive tool to support enterprises during these critical times, ensuring quick recovery and enhanced resilience.

Accelerated incident response and resolution for IT disruption

One of the most critical aspects of managing IT outages is the speed of response. Everbridge 360 with its digital operations solution streamlines workflows, providing contextual notifications and integrating with ChatOps to accelerate the assessment and response to IT disruptions. By pinpointing system degradations and supplying actionable issue context, Everbridge enables on-call resolvers to act swiftly and efficiently.

Key features to support in case of IT problems or IT emergency:

• Real-time risk monitoring: Continuous monitoring allows organizations to identify potential issues before they escalate into major IT outages.
• Automated incident response: Automated workflows and notifications ensure that the right personnel are alerted immediately, reducing the time to resolution.

Seamless integration with existing tools for system recovery

Everbridge integrates seamlessly with a variety of existing cybersecurity tools and frameworks. This compatibility ensures that organizations can leverage their current investments in technology while enhancing their incident response capabilities. The platform’s flexibility in integrating with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems and other security infrastructure provides a unified approach to threat detection and response.

Benefits of IT outage management solutions:

• Unified threat management: Integration with existing tools ensures comprehensive threat management and streamlined operations.
• Automated workflows: Low- to no-code visual workflow designer allows teams to build and adapt automated runbooks and communication plans with ease.

Effective communication and coordination during an IT outage

During an IT outage, clear and effective communication is paramount. Everbridge’s platform facilitates this through multiple channels, including mobile apps, phones, SMS, and email. The platform’s automated escalations ensure that if the required personnel do not respond within a specified time, the issue is addressed by the right people without delay.

Communication tools for IT outage times:

• Context-rich notifications: Alerts are enriched with relevant context to ensure that responders have all the information they need to act quickly.
• Automated escalations: Ensures that critical issues are addressed by escalating alerts to the next level of response if initial contacts are unavailable.

Comprehensive post-incident analysis

After resolving an IT outage, it is essential to conduct a thorough analysis to understand the root causes and improve future response strategies. Everbridge offers comprehensive analytics and postmortem capabilities, providing real-time incident tracking, team performance visibility, and incident response efficacy. This continuous improvement process helps organizations adapt their incident response models and grow their resilience over time.

Post-incident capabilities:

• 360-degree postmortems: Detailed post-incident analysis helps in identifying gaps and improving response strategies.
  
• Continuous improvement: Real-time tracking and performance metrics aid in refining processes and preventing future outages.

A leading private research university faced challenges in coordinating responses to cyber-attacks and system outages due to the lack of a central tool. By leveraging Everbridge’s IT incident response platform, the university was able to enhance its cyber preparedness significantly. Automated workflows and real-time alerts enabled the university’s System Support team to restore normal operations faster than expected, minimizing financial and reputational damage.

Positive impact on recovery capabilities:

• Faster recovery: Automated workflows and real-time alerts reduced response time.
• Improved coordination: Centralized communication and coordination tools ensured all team members were on the same page.

IT outage management with Everbridge 360^TM

Everbridge 360 and its digital operations solution provides enterprises with the tools they need to manage IT outages effectively. By accelerating incident response, integrating seamlessly with existing tools, ensuring effective communication, and offering comprehensive post-incident analysis, Everbridge helps organizations minimize IT disruption, reduce financial losses, and enhance their overall resilience. In an era where IT infrastructure is the backbone of business operations, Everbridge stands out as a critical partner in ensuring operational continuity and cyber resilience.