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Mission-Critical Applications

What Are Mission-Critical Applications?

Mission-critical applications are applications that are vitally important to the operation of a business. If they fail, they can significantly alter the revenue, productivity, or trust in the organization.

Characteristics of Mission-Critical Applications

The main hallmark of a mission-critical application is its centrality to the success of business operations. However, they also need to have several features to work as intended, including high uptimes, strong security, easy maintenance, scalability, and reliability. An application that's central to your business operations should be as invulnerable as possible.

Why Are Mission Critical Applications Important?

Mission-critical applications are important for several reasons. First, they're typically used by a large number of users or key users in the organization. Because they're critical to operations and business continuity management, many people rely on them to work properly.

 

Second, they may store sensitive data for a business, including health data, financial data, or other personally identifiable information.

 

Third, they assist with the core processes of a business, including tasks like customer service, ordering, billing, and inventory. If one or more of these processes fails, it can put a pause on everything.

What is an Example of Mission-Critical Applications?

Any application tied to core business processes may be considered mission-critical, including point-of-sale (POS) systems, healthcare systems, customer relationship management (CRM) applications, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

What is the Difference Between Mission-Critical Applications and Business-Critical Applications?

While mission-critical and business-critical applications are important, the biggest difference between them is how essential they are to core business operations. If business-critical applications go down, they may not have as big of an impact on operations compared to mission-critical applications.

How TierPoint Can Help With Mission-Critical Applications

TierPoint has a number of solutions that can help businesses maintain and protect their mission-critical applications. Learn more about our proactive security services, and more.