national grid
National Grid enhances its business continuity with NCC Group's software escrow
About
National Grid is the utility provider responsible for some of the UK’s most important national infrastructures. It owns, operates and develops both the high-voltage electricity transmission network in England and Wales and the UK’s principal natural gas transportation system.
Challenge
To manage the storage and distribution of electricity and gas around the country, National Grid relies on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) process control systems.
SCADA systems are utilised by most major utility providers and heavy manufacturers to collate and monitor data from across the network centrally, and issue management information and alerts which ensure controls are consistently adhered to and production is constantly maintained.
Ensuring continuous round-the-clock availability of its process control systems and other supporting software applications is vitally important to National Grid.
National Grid includes its process control systems, along with its other key business software applications, within its business continuity strategy. One of the key considerations covered by the strategy is the risks associated with the failure of, or breakdown of a relationship with a key supplier.
Solution
In order to mitigate those risks and demonstrate sound corporate governance, National Grid protects these software applications with escrow agreements from the world’s largest software escrow provider, NCC Group.
Software escrow is a simple legal arrangement between a user of a software application, their supplier and an escrow provider, such as NCC Group. Under the escrow agreement, NCC Group holds a copy of the source code behind the software application and will only release it to the end-user if certain circumstances occur – for example if the supplier defaulted on maintenance obligations or went into liquidation.
As well as ensuring source code is stored and regularly updated for these applications, National Grid has also commissioned Full Verification Testing of each application held in escrow. This type of testing is included in NCC Group’s most comprehensive escrow solutions and is effectively an audit of the source code deposited to ensure it could be built into the working system.
As part of the testing process, NCC Group observes the complete build of the application by the supplier and documents the environment and build processes in a detailed report which describes every step involved in building the source code into the working application.
Results
The testing process provides National Grid with the assurance not only that the source code is deposited, but that all the necessary scripts, instructions and files required to rebuild or amend their applications are deposited also.
Peter Jones, System Manager at National Grid commented: “There is a professional approach from NCC Group to establishing the correct level of protection and we do not experience pressure to purchase unnecessary additional services. Our account manager liaises with both their legal team and our suppliers to get the legal agreement approved and arrange the testing and deposit, removing the hassle and effort from the process for us.”
National Grid has been working with NCC Group for over ten years to protect its business-critical applications.
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NCC Group is a leading global provider of independent IT assurance, security and consultancy services. As a trusted advisor, we help over 15,000 public, private and not for profit sector organisations, including 92 of the FTSE 100, to make the most efficient use of information and technology and to manage the associated risks.
Quote
“There is a professional approach from NCC Group to establishing the correct level of protection and we do not experience pressure to purchase unnecessary additional services. Our account manager liaises with both their legal team and our suppliers to get the legal agreement approved and arrange the testing and deposit, removing the hassle and effort from the process for us”
Peter Jones, System Manager, National Grid
Challenge
Ensuring continuous round-the-clock availability of its process control systems and other supporting software applications is vitally important to National Grid
Solution
In order to mitigate risk and demonstrate sound corporate governance, National Grid now protects these software applications under software escrow solutions with NCC Group
Results
If there should be an issue with a key supplier that affected the ongoing support and maintenance of a mission critical software application, National Grid has the reassurance that its business continuity would not be affected
PDF Version 
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