A.7.11 Supporting Utilities
What is A.7.11 Supporting Utilities?
ISO 27001 control A.7.11 Supporting Utilities ensures supporting utilities including electricity, telecommunications, water supply, and HVAC are adequately protected, monitored, and provided with redundancy to prevent interruption to operations. For cloud-native organisations, this includes cloud infrastructure utility monitoring via Azure Service Health alerts, data centre redundancy via Zone and Geo-Redundancy, on-premises UPS protection, and network redundancy via SD-WAN automatic failover.
How to implement A.7.11 in Microsoft 365
Implement A.7.11 by configuring Azure Service Health alerts
Implement A.7.11 by configuring Azure Service Health alerts to notify administrators of platform issues affecting Azure and Microsoft 365 services. Verify Microsoft’s data centre redundancy documentation via annual SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certificate reviews. Confirm Zone Redundancy and Geo-Redundancy configuration for critical data in Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
Ensure all critical network equipment is connected to
Ensure all critical network equipment is connected to UPS with minimum 30-minute runtime. Schedule quarterly UPS self-tests and annual battery health assessments.
Implement SD-WAN with redundant internet connections including primary
Implement SD-WAN with redundant internet connections including primary fibre and secondary 4G or 5G backup with automatic failover.
What an auditor checks for A.7.11
- Auditors will verify Azure Service Health alert configuration screenshot showing at least one alert rule enabled.
- They will check Microsoft SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certificate from Service Trust Portal.
- Auditors will review data resilience documentation showing ZRS and GRS configuration for Exchange and SharePoint.
- They will verify UPS maintenance log showing quarterly self-tests and annual battery assessments.
- Auditors will check network topology diagram showing redundant ISP connections with SD-WAN configuration.
- They will review documented failover test report with timestamps.
What your auditor expects for A.7.11
- Supporting Utilities evidence report with UPS
- network redundancy
- cloud attestation
Related controls
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