Making enterprise information systems resilient against disruptive events: a conceptual view

Abstract

Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) are designed to deal with normal variability in their inputs and data. Empowered by CONTEXT-AWARENESS, some EIS even count on sensors and/or data analytics for capturing changes outside of the system. Nevertheless, context-awareness would often fail when EIS are affected by (large-scale) disruptive events, such as disasters, virus outbreaks, or military conflicts. Hence, in the current paper, we take a step forward, by considering context-awareness for disruptive events. We combine context-awareness with risk management techniques, such as FMECA and FTA, that are useful for defining and mitigating risk events. To avoid having to define the likelihood for such very-low-probability disruptive risks, we use CONSEQUENCE-BASED RISK MANAGEMENT rather than traditional risk management. We augment this approach with the context-awareness paradigm, delivering a contribution that is two-fold: (i) We propose context-awareness-related measures and consequence-based-risk-management-related measures, to address disruptive events; (ii) We reflect this in a method featuring the application of context-awareness and risk management for designing robust and resilient EIS.