How Much Would Downtime Cost Your Business?
Published on 18/05/2022
Investing in critical applications is an exciting time for businesses, thinking about how they will streamline operations, help us generate more revenue and free up our time to focus on higher-value tasks.
However, as we become more reliant on critical applications, we also invite greater risk into our organisations. This is especially evident when the applications we license are business critical, bespoke, highly customised or revenue generating. With applications of this nature, we have a greater financial investment in their development and the continuity of our businesses relies upon them. No longer having access to these critical applications can lead to a significant revenue loss and leads to added time and financial costs associated with having to procure a suitable replacement.
A swift redeployment is crucial to getting your applications back online and the money flowing in, giving you breathing room to procure a suitable replacement.
Quick recovery relies on having all the materials in place and a clear plan of action ready to put them all together. At SES we have developed Remote Code validation services. Remote Code Validation involves the Software Developer (Licensor) rebuilding the application in their own environment. The SES testing consultant witnesses the full rebuild of the application via a secure remote connection and documents the entire process. (This process can also be completed with the SES testing consultant on-site at the Licensors premises if required).
The independent report compiled by the SES testing consultant coupled with the audio and visual recording of the build enables you or a third party to accurately redeploy your software application in the event of a release.
In addition, we can perform a Remote Code Validation With Simulated Release. The additional benefit of this service is the simulated release event which demonstrates the build documentation is sufficient for a Software Developer to rebuild the application upon release.
For applications that are revenue generating, business-critical, bespoke or highly customised, SES would always recommend performing Remote Code Validation Testing with the Simulated Release as it is the only form of Validation Testing which provides complete assurance that the Escrow deposit can be swiftly and accurately redeployed whilst minimising downtime in the event of a release.
The SES Licensee Continuity Plan (LCP) Escrow Agreement is a SaaS Continuity service. It is designed to ensure hosted applications can be restored quickly and resume providing business critical services. In addition, all necessary build documentation is held in Escrow for the purpose of continued development and support of the software. This proves that the application can be deployed from Escrow independent of the supplier, eliminating the risk of significant downtime to key services and business operations.
For standard Software Escrow, with releases containing supplier IP, the release process varies typically between 14 to 30 days (across the Escrow industry). While waiting for this process to complete there is a real danger to the software user of increased operational downtime, poor recoverability, loss of revenue, brand & reputation damage, non-recoverable losses, legal claims and business closure. SES's LCP provides a real-time Interim Release that bridges the gap between initiating the release process and its completion. Upon receipt of a release request, SES can switch on the Interim Release and provide the software user with continued access to their services, in some cases within minutes. This protects the software user and ensures the business can continue to operate without disruption until the release process finalises. The LCP will set out the timeframe for operating the Interim Release and once the release has been confirmed the Licensee Continuity Plan would become fully operational.
If you have concerns about how disruption of your critical applications would impact your business and would like to discuss the details of your business continuity plan or speak to us about our LCP agreement, please get in touch.
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