ISO 27001:2022 Annex A 8.14 Redundancy of information processing facilities

In this guide, I will show you exactly how to implement ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 and ensure you pass your audit. You will get a complete walkthrough of the control, practical implementation examples, and access to the ISO 27001 templates and toolkit that make compliance easy.

I am Stuart Barker, an ISO 27001 Lead Auditor with over 30 years of experience conducting hundreds of audits. I will cut through the jargon to show you exactly what changed in the 2022 update and provide you with plain-English advice to get you certified.

Key Takeaways: ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Redundancy of Information Processing Facilities

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 requires organizations to implement redundancy in their IT systems to ensure they remain operational during a failure. It’s not just about “having a backup”; it’s about having standby hardware, software, or network connections that can take over immediately if the primary system fails. The goal is to meet the availability requirements defined by the business.

Core requirements for compliance include:

• Eliminate Single Points of Failure (SPOF): You must identify any single component that, if it fails, would take down your entire service (e.g., a single internet line, one power supply, or a single database server).
• Technical Duplication: Depending on your risk, this may include dual power supplies, mirrored databases, load balancers, or redundant internet service providers (ISPs).
• Automatic vs. Manual Failover: You must define how the system switches to the redundant component. For critical systems, this should be automatic; for less critical ones, a documented manual process is acceptable.
• Testing: Redundancy is a theory until it is tested. You must regularly simulate a failure (e.g., pulling a power cable or failing over a database) to prove your standby systems actually work.

Audit Focus: Auditors will look for the “Architecture of Resilience”:

1. SPOF Analysis: “Show me your list of critical systems. Do any of them rely on a single server or internet link?”
2. Evidence of Uptime: “Show me the report from your last failover test. Did the redundant system take over within the agreed timeframe?”
3. Cloud Leveraging: If you are in the cloud (AWS/Azure), they will check if you are using “Multi-AZ” (Availability Zones) to ensure redundancy across different physical data centers.

Redundancy Checklist (Audit Prep):

Component	Redundancy Method	Why it matters
Power	Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) / Generators.	Prevents crashes during local power cuts.
Internet	Dual ISPs (e.g., Fiber + 5G backup).	Ensures connectivity if a street cable is cut.
Data	Database Clustering / Mirroring.	Prevents data loss if a hard drive or server fails.
Cloud	Multi-Region / Multi-Zone deployment.	Protects against a whole data center outage.

What is ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14?

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 is about redundancy of information processing facilities which means having backup and standby systems in case of an outage.

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Redundancy of information processing facilities is an ISO 27001 control that requires an organisation to implement information processing facilities with redundancy built in that is sufficient enough to meet availability requirements.

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Purpose

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 is preventive control that ensures the continuous operation of information processing facilities.

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Definition

The ISO 27001 standard defines ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 as:

Information processing facilities should be implemented with redundancy sufficient to meet availability

ISO27001:2022 Annex A 8.14 Redundancy of Information Processing Facilities

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Free Training Video

In the video ISO 27001 Redundancy of Information Processing Facilities Explained – ISO27001:2022 Annex A 8.14 I show you how to implement it and how to pass the audit.

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Explainer Video

In this beginner’s guide to ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Redundancy of Information Processing Facilities , ISO 27001 Lead Auditor Stuart Barker and his team talk you through what it is, how to implement in and how to pass the audit. Free ISO 27001 training.

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Podcast

In this episode: Lead Auditor Stuart Barker and team do a deep dive into the ISO 27001:2022 Annex A 8.14 Redundancy of Information Processing Facilities. The podcast explores what it is, why it is important and the path to compliance.

How to implement ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14

Identify Requirements

Identify what requirements you have for maintaining availability so that you can understand what you need to implement.

The best way to identify the redundancy requirements is to conduct a business impact assessment (BIA). The BIA will identify and prioritise your critical systems and data and will provide you with time scales for how quickly they should be recovered. This in turn will inform your approach to redundancy.

Design and Implement Redundancy

This is where you will need the guidance of your subject matter experts in the technologies that you have. Usually there is an element of duplication that meets redundancy requirements and then implementing the processes and procedures to activate those redundant components.

Implement Alerts

You will want to have alerts in place that notify you when any element that is covered under redundancy fails so that you can respond and run the processes and procedures you have in place to recover.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing allows you various advantages including the the potential to have multiple live versions of information processing facilities, multiple separate physical locations, automatic failover, load balancing and more. Work with the subject matter experts to see what you can leverage to meet your requirements.

Testing

It goes without saying that you should test and evidence your testing for activating redundancy. This is usually as part of your business continuity and disaster recovery testing.

Single Point of Failure (SPOF)

An example checklist for SPOF:

• Do you have two ISPs?
• Do servers have dual power supplies?
• Is there a UPS battery backup?
• Is the database clustered?

How to comply

To comply with ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 you are going to implement the ‘how’ to the ‘what’ the control is expecting.
In short measure you are going to:

• Understand and record the legal, regulatory and contractual requirements you have for data
• Conduct a risk assessment
• Based on the legal, regulatory, contractual requirements and the risk assessment you will implement a redundancy solution
• Document and implement your processes and technical implementations for redundancy
• Check that the controls are working by conducting internal audits

What will an auditor check?

The audit is going to check a number of areas. Lets go through the main ones

That you have documentation

What this means is that you need to show that you have documented your legal, regulatory and contractual requirements for information and that you have taken this into account when building your information processing facilities redundancy. Where data protection laws exist that you have documented what those laws are and what those requirements are. That you have an information classification scheme and a topic specific policy for access control and that you have documented your information redundancy taking all of this into account.

That you have have implemented redundancy appropriately

They will look at systems to seek evidence of information processing facilities redundancy, testing and recovery. They want to see evidence of tests, the results of tests and any continual improvement you conducted as a result of those tests.

That you have conducted internal audits

The audit will want to see that you have tested the controls and evidenced that they are operating. This is usually in the form of the required internal audits. They will check the records and outputs of those internal audits.

Top 3 ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 mistakes and how to avoid them

In my experience, the top 3 mistakes people make for ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 Redundancy of information processing facilities are

1. You have not tested

This is a common mistake we see. That you have not tested that you can recover and activate your redundancy solution. Sometimes you did a recovery test but it was a long time ago, or it was a partial recovery and therefore you have no actual evidence that your redundancy solution can be implemented to a point the organisation is operational again within the time frames and to the point in time that was agreed.

2. You don’t know your legal obligations

This is a massive mistake that we see, where people assume ISO 27001 is just information security and forget that it also checks that appropriate laws are being followed, and in particular data protection laws. Cost saving by not having a data protection expert or ignoring data protection law entirely is a common mistake we see people make when cutting corners and saving costs. Duplicating data and having redundancy, in particular personal information, can get you in a lot of hot water depending how you implement it.

3. Your document and version control is wrong

Keeping your document version control up to date, making sure that version numbers match where used, having a review evidenced in the last 12 months, having documents that have no comments in are all good practices.

Fast Track Compliance with the ISO 27001 Toolkit

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For ISO 27001 Annex A 8.14 (Redundancy of information processing facilities), the requirement is to ensure continuous operation by having backup and standby systems in place. While SaaS platforms often try to sell you “continuous availability tracking” or complex failover monitoring, the auditor is primarily looking for your governance framework: the Business Impact Analysis (BIA), redundancy policies, and evidence of testing.

The High Table ISO 27001 Toolkit provides the logical, time-saving solution by delivering the exact governance structure needed to satisfy this requirement without the bloat of an online platform.

Here is why the Toolkit is the smarter choice for complying with Annex A 8.14:

1. Ownership: You Own Your Continuity Strategy Forever

SaaS platforms act as a middleman for your compliance data. If you define your redundancy standards and store your BIA results inside their proprietary system, you are essentially renting your own business continuity plan.

• The Toolkit Advantage: You receive the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and Information Redundancy Policy in fully editable Word/Excel formats. These files are yours forever. You maintain permanent ownership of your redundancy strategy and audit history on your own systems, without an ongoing subscription bill.

2. Simplicity: Focus on the “Plan,” Not the Dashboard

Annex A 8.14 requires you to identify critical systems and prove you have redundancy for them. You don’t need a complex SaaS dashboard to record that your database is clustered or that you have dual ISPs.

• The Toolkit Advantage: Your technical team already knows how to implement redundancy (e.g., using AWS Multi-AZ or dual power supplies). The Toolkit provides the Redundancy Policy and Continuity Checklist that formalize their work for the auditor. It focuses on the strategy and testing, which is what the audit verifies, rather than forcing your team to learn new software just to document their architecture.

3. Cost: A One-Off Fee vs. The “Availability Tax”

Many SaaS compliance tools charge based on the number of “critical assets” or “system integrations” you monitor for availability. As your infrastructure becomes more resilient, your compliance bill grows.

• The Toolkit Advantage: You pay a single, one-off fee for the Toolkit. Whether you are protecting one local server or a global multi-cloud infrastructure, the cost of your Redundancy Documentation remains the same. You save your budget for actual redundant hardware and cloud services rather than a platform to describe them.

4. Freedom: No Vendor Lock-In for Your Infrastructure

SaaS tools often mandate specific monitoring integrations. If your modern hybrid cloud or specialized legacy setup doesn’t fit their rigid “standard connector” model, the tool becomes an obstacle.

• The Toolkit Advantage: The High Table Toolkit is technology-agnostic. You can edit the Redundancy Procedures to match exactly how you operate, whether you use hot-standby sites, load balancers, or simple UPS backups. You define the standards that fit your business, giving you the freedom to evolve your architecture without reconfiguring a compliance tool.

Summary: For Annex A 8.14, the auditor wants to see that you have a plan for redundancy and that it is tested. The High Table ISO 27001 Toolkit provides the governance framework to do exactly that. It is the most direct, cost-effective way to prove system resilience with permanent documentation that you own and control.

Related ISO 27001 Controls

ISO 27001 Annex A 5.30 ICT Readiness for business continuity

ISO 27001 Annex A 7.3 Securing Offices, Rooms And Facilities

ISO 27001 Annex A 7.11 Supporting Utilities

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.29 Security Testing in Development and Acceptance

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.34 Protection of Information Systems During Audit Testing

ISO 27001 Annex A 8.33 Test Information

About the author

Stuart Barker is a veteran practitioner with over 30 years of experience in systems security and risk management.

Holding an MSc in Software and Systems Security, Stuart combines academic rigor with extensive operational experience. His background includes over a decade leading Data Governance for General Electric (GE) across Europe, as well as founding and exiting a successful cyber security consultancy.

As a qualified ISO 27001 Lead Auditor and Lead Implementer, Stuart possesses distinct insight into the specific evidence standards required by certification bodies. He has successfully guided hundreds of organizations – from high-growth technology startups to enterprise financial institutions – through the audit lifecycle.

His toolkits represents the distillation of that field experience into a standardised framework. They move beyond theoretical compliance, providing a pragmatic, auditor-verified methodology designed to satisfy ISO/IEC 27001:2022 while minimising operational friction.