You know what you want your system to do and you know how it should work. However, there are a number of other things you need to consider, these are called non-functional requirements. Part 1 of 3. AVAILABILITY A system's availability, or "uptime," is the amount of time that it is operational and available for use. This is specified because some systems are designed with expected downtime for activities like database upgrades and backups. * Are there any parts of the system that require 24 hour access? * Are there any parts of the system where down-time is not acceptable? INTEGRITY and SECURITY Integrity requirements define the security attributes of the system, restricting access to features or data to certain users and protecting the privacy of data entered into the software. * Do you need to comply with Government Regulations? * How will you manage authentication (access to the system)? * How will you manage authorisation (access to parts of the system)? RELIABILITY Reliability specifies the capability of the software to maintain its performance over time. Unreliable software fails frequently, and certain tasks are more sensitive to failure (for example, because they cannot be restarted, or because they must be run at a certain time). AUDIT The System must allow flexibility of audit – some fields require full audit monitoring while others may not. * to what extent does auditing occur? * how long audit records need to be retained DATA RETENTION How long does the system retain data in its 'online system'? If data is archived, how long are the archives kept and how is their data utilised? How do we dispose of out of date data securely? DATA RECOVERY Describes how long it takes to recover data in case of an accident and how much data we are prepared to lose. * Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is how long it takes to restore data including locating backups, restoring them and testing their integrity *Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - is how much data we are prepared to lose. Your system may lose a day's data if you backup each night, how important is that? BACKUP and RESTORE Coupled with data recovery Backup and Restore describes how your backups and restores function. Is your data backed up to another computer, to tape, a combination of both? Is your database backed up as it runs, at a transaction level? * What are you backing up and how often * What are the business impacts of backup and restore? DISASTER RECOVERY When designing the Disaster Recovery plans and procedures, consideration must be given to the system’s architecture. For example Production data in Wellington and DR data in Auckland and the movement of data in this situation. * What are you duplicating to your Disaster Recovery site and how often * How do you get data back from your Disaster Recovery site or do you use that site as your primary? How is that done? * What are the business impacts of a Disaster Recovery incident? There is much more to this than 'just' you computer system's backup and restore? Please get in touch if there is anything Freeman Software can do to help your business succeed.