What is an Incident?

In the vast landscape of IT, terminology can often get convoluted, leaving room for misinterpretation. One such term that's crucial to understand is "incident". Although definitions can vary, they generally suggest a "deviation from the normal procedure".

To ensure clarity and foster swift, precise action, we propose a more specific definition:

Incident

An incident refers to a situation with a visible business impact, meaning it affects the user experience for your customers, whether internal or external. This can be a disruption, an outage, or any situation that affects the provided services in a way that consumers of the service notice or experience degraded performance.

This definition highlights the real-world impact an incident has on your operations and, ultimately, on your customers' experience.

The focus on visible business impact highlights the urgency and importance of incidents. The aim is not merely to get your systems back to normal but to minimize any negative effects on your business and your customers. It is this perspective that drives our incident response approach, ensuring that we not only respond effectively to incidents but also prioritize maintaining excellent customer experience, regardless of the circumstances.

This brings us to the distinction between an incident and an alert.