Data centers case study

Uptime resilience and cyber physical continuity for a global data center operator

Data centers and cloud infrastructure providers underpin the operational continuity of modern economies. Financial institutions, critical infrastructure operators, healthcare systems, and public authorities increasingly depend on uninterrupted digital infrastructure availability.

Resilience Guard GmbH was engaged by a major multinational data center and cloud infrastructure operator supporting enterprise and regulated sector clients across Europe and international markets.

The organisation required strengthened resilience capability focused on uptime assurance, cyber physical disruption preparedness, and continuity governance aligned with ISO 22301 principles and essential ecosystem expectations under European resilience frameworks such as NIS2.

This engagement focused on maintaining infrastructure availability under extreme disruption scenarios, including cyber interruption, physical incidents, supplier disruption, and systemic utility loss.

Business context: Data center continuity is economic continuity

Digital infrastructure providers face disruption pressures including:

• cyber enabled disruption affecting critical service availability
• physical incidents impacting facility operations
• dependency on utilities such as power, cooling, and connectivity
• supplier failure across hyperscale infrastructure ecosystems
• increasing assurance demands from regulated clients under DORA related resilience expectations
• essential entity scrutiny under NIS2 contextual obligations for critical digital infrastructure

Unlike many industries, downtime tolerance in data centers is near zero.

Executive leadership required confidence that critical infrastructure availability could be sustained under scenarios such as:

• ransomware disruption impacting operational management environments
• facility level loss of utilities requiring controlled recovery
• third party supplier interruption affecting critical infrastructure components
• systemic outage events requiring rapid crisis escalation and client communication
• regulatory and client audits demanding measurable resilience assurance

The core question was:
How can infrastructure availability and continuity governance be strengthened across facilities, ensuring auditable uptime resilience for critical client ecosystems?

The situation: Uptime governance fragmented across sites and suppliers

The operator maintained multiple facilities with varying maturity.

Key challenges identified included:
• inconsistent recovery objectives between data center regions
• limited integration between cyber incident response and infrastructure continuity governance
• supplier dependency risk not formally embedded into resilience strategy
• absence of unified crisis escalation structures for hyperscale disruption events
• increasing audit pressure from regulated sector clients demanding measurable continuity evidence

The organisation required resilience designed around infrastructure uptime reality, not generic continuity documentation.

Resilience Guard delivery focus: Resilience built around uptime assurance and client critical dependency
Resilience Guard structured the engagement around data center specific continuity outcomes, ensuring infrastructure resilience could function under both cyber and physical disruption conditions.
The work was delivered through four digital infrastructure resilience pillars.

1. Critical uptime service prioritisation and facility impact tolerance
Resilience Guard worked with leadership to define which infrastructure services must remain stable under disruption.

Focus areas included:

• core compute and hosting availability commitments
• connectivity and network backbone continuity
• power and cooling resilience sequencing
• client critical service restoration prioritisation
• facility operational command capability during incident escalation

Outputs included:

• tiered infrastructure criticality classification
• definition of maximum tolerable downtime thresholds
• restoration sequencing aligned with regulated client impact
This ensured continuity priorities reflected systemic client dependency.

2. Business impact analysis aligned with ISO 22301 for digital infrastructure
A structured ISO 22301 aligned BIA was conducted across infrastructure operations.

The analysis defined:
• recovery time objectives for facility critical functions
• recovery point objectives for management and monitoring environments
• minimum staffing requirements for sustained uptime assurance
• disruption tolerance thresholds linked to client contractual exposure

This created measurable governance suitable for audit and regulatory review.

3. Cyber physical disruption preparedness and incident continuity integration
Data center resilience requires integrated cyber physical continuity capability.

Resilience Guard strengthened preparedness for scenarios including:

• cyber compromise of facility management systems
• ransomware disruption affecting operational coordination platforms
• physical incident escalation impacting facility infrastructure
• cascading outage scenarios across interconnected sites

Key outcomes included:

• unified governance linking cyber response and infrastructure restoration
• improved ability to stabilise operations under cyber physical disruption
• enhanced coordination between security teams, engineering, and crisis leadership
This aligned resilience with essential ecosystem expectations under NIS2 contextual obligations.

4. Supplier and utility resilience governance for hyperscale dependency
Data center continuity depends heavily on utilities and supplier ecosystems.

Resilience Guard strengthened dependency oversight through:

• mapping of critical power, cooling, and connectivity dependencies
• supplier continuity assurance requirements for infrastructure partners
• escalation protocols for utility disruption events
• resilience governance supporting regulated client assurance expectations

This reduced systemic risk driven by external infrastructure dependency pathways.

Quantified outcomes delivered
The engagement produced measurable improvements across uptime resilience, crisis readiness, and audit preparedness.

Recovery time objective improvement for facility critical operations

Across priority infrastructure functions, the operator achieved:

• 30 to 45 percent reduction in recovery time objectives
• defined restoration sequencing ensuring regulated client infrastructure stabilises first
• improved uptime resilience during disruption simulation exercises

Cyber physical resilience uplift

Following integration of incident continuity governance:

• reduced exposure to cyber enabled facility interruption
• improved coordination between engineering and cyber response teams
• enhanced ability to restore safe operational management environments

Resilience maturity uplift across facilities

A structured maturity scoring model was applied across infrastructure regions.
Initial maturity variance:

• Level 2 developing in decentralized facility governance
• Level 4 managed in mature flagship sites

Post engagement baseline:

• Level 4 maturity achieved across all critical uptime resilience domains
• roadmap established toward Level 5 optimised infrastructure continuity assurance

Audit and regulated client assurance enhancement

The operator strengthened resilience evidence supporting:

• ISO 22301 aligned continuity governance
• NIS2 contextual resilience expectations for digital infrastructure
• regulated client assurance needs aligned with DORA related oversight
• executive level reporting of uptime continuity capability

Leadership reported significantly improved confidence in audit readiness and infrastructure stability.

Explore related sector resilience case studies
Resilience Guard supports multinational organisations across critical sectors including:

• Energy and terminal infrastructure resilience
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• Telecommunications connectivity disruption preparedness
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• Transportation and aviation mobility continuity programmes
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• Pharmaceutical supply chain resilience governance
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• Technology distribution ecosystem continuity assurance
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• Insurance operational resilience and catastrophe continuity
→ Explore the insurance case study

• Manufacturing plant continuity and OT resilience governance
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• Public authority citizen service continuity and crisis governance
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Frequently asked questions: Data center continuity

How does ISO 22301 apply to data center operators?
ISO 22301 provides the governance framework for business continuity. In data centers it ensures uptime critical services, recovery objectives, and infrastructure continuity governance are measurable, auditable, and aligned with client assurance requirements.

Why is cyber physical resilience essential in digital infrastructure?
Data center disruption is rarely purely cyber or purely physical. Effective resilience integrates both, ensuring coordinated recovery of facility operations, management systems, and infrastructure stability.

What measurable outcomes can data center resilience programmes deliver?
High maturity programmes typically achieve:
• 30 to 50 percent faster infrastructure recovery
• stronger crisis escalation coordination for outage events
• improved supplier and utility dependency resilience
• enhanced audit confidence for regulated client ecosystems

Book your resilience consultation
Resilience Guard GmbH supports data center operators across Switzerland, Europe, and international markets with award winning expertise in:
• ISO 22301 aligned business continuity
• Cyber physical disruption preparedness for uptime environments
• Supplier and utility continuity assurance governance
• Resilience capability supporting regulated sector client expectations
→ Book Your Resilience Consultation