ISO 27001 A.8.14: redundancy, explained for startups
What A.8.14 asks of a small company, and what an auditor samples.
Build in enough redundancy so systems stay available if a component fails. Spare capacity and failover keep the business running.
Why it exists: to keep key systems running when one part fails.
A.8.14 Redundancy of information processing facilities
Key systems keep running if one part fails. What proves it: redundancy for key systems, such as more than one availability zone, and a test that failover works.
A certification auditor samples failover design and a failover test. A file that usually does the job: a diagram showing services across availability zones, and a record of a failover test.
How to put it in place
Each step leaves a record, and the record is what the auditor samples rather than the step itself. Inside Polara, the control card for A.8.14 walks you through it in this order.
- Run key services across more than one availability zone.
- Use managed databases with automatic failover.
- Test failover and record the result.
No question in the readiness assessment covers A.8.14 directly, so the control card is its whole evidence path.
Policies, connectors and the SOC 2 overlap
In the ISO 27001 policy pack, the Backup and Redundancy Policy covers A.8.14. An auditor reads the policy for the rule, then samples the records to see the rule was followed.
The same evidence counts toward SOC 2. The Trust Services criterion that cover this ground: A1.2, recovery infrastructure.
Technological controls
A.8.14 is one of the 34 technological controls in Annex A. The controls built into your systems: access, devices, malware, vulnerabilities, backups, logging, networks, encryption and secure development. Exports and settings screenshots prove most of them.
Nearby controls in the same theme:
- A.8.11, data masking
- A.8.12, data leak prevention
- A.8.13, backups
- A.8.15, logging
- A.8.16, monitoring for anomalies
- A.8.17, clock synchronization
Before it: A.8.13, backups. After it: A.8.15, logging. Every control, by theme, is on the Annex A controls page.
Questions
What does ISO 27001 A.8.14 require?
What evidence does an auditor want for A.8.14?
Get ready for ISO 27001 certification.
The readiness assessment is free, with no payment and no card. ISO 27001 is part of Constellation, at $10,800 a year: everything in Orbit plus the management system, the policies, the evidence and the management review for ISO 27001, and your SOC 2 Type 2 audit is included in every contract year. You contract the certification body directly.
The internal audit is priced separately: Polara arranges it with an independent internal auditor from our partner network who works in the platform, and quotes it for your company.
Take the free assessmentPolara Labs is not a certification body. Certification audits are performed by independent accredited certification bodies.