A consumer adopts a cloud backup service. Which of the following is best described as a risk IMPOSED on the consumer by the service?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 1. Key concepts of service management hard
Draft — not checked yet. This question was written from the published exam objectives and cites the clause it comes from, but nobody has yet read it against that clause and signed for it.
It is kept out of search results and out of mock exams until they have. Read the source below before you take the answer as settled.
The options
Not correct The consumer no longer needs to employ backup operators
Wrong. That is a cost removed by the service, and it is a benefit rather than a risk of any kind.
Not correct The consumer's own tape library could fail and lose data
Wrong. That is a risk the service removes from the consumer; removed risks are part of the value proposition.
Not correct The consumer must pay a monthly subscription fee
Wrong. A known, planned payment is a cost of consumption, not a risk. A risk is a possible event that could cause harm or loss.
Correct The provider could go out of business, leaving the consumer without access to its backups
Correct. Depending on a provider creates a new possible harmful event that did not exist before — a textbook risk imposed by the service.
Why
As with costs, risks run in both directions. Risks removed from the consumer by the service (such as hardware failure it no longer owns) are part of the value proposition; risks imposed on the consumer by the service (provider failure, security breach, lock-in) are new exposures created by consuming it. The distinction that separates risk from cost is uncertainty: a risk is a possible event, a cost is spend.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 1
- What it says
- Risk is a possible event that could cause harm or loss; services both remove risks from and impose risks on the consumer.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 1 and space the ones you get wrong.