CAS-002 · Question #295
A company uses a custom Line of Business (LOB) application to facilitate all back-end manufacturing control. Upon investigation, it has been determined that the database used by the LOB application…
The correct answer is D. Difficulty extracting data from the database. A proprietary database format creates vendor lock-in and data portability risk. The greatest operational concern is the inability to access or extract data if the vendor relationship ends or the product is discontinued.
Question
A company uses a custom Line of Business (LOB) application to facilitate all back-end manufacturing control. Upon investigation, it has been determined that the database used by the LOB application uses a proprietary data format. The risk management group has flagged this as a potential weakness in the company's operational robustness. Which of the following would be the GREATEST concern when analyzing the manufacturing control application?
Options
- ADifficulty backing up the custom database
- BDifficulty migrating to new hardware
- CDifficulty training new admin personnel
- DDifficulty extracting data from the database
How the community answered
(26 responses)- A4% (1)
- B8% (2)
- C4% (1)
- D85% (22)
Why each option
A proprietary database format creates vendor lock-in and data portability risk. The greatest operational concern is the inability to access or extract data if the vendor relationship ends or the product is discontinued.
Backup difficulty is a technical inconvenience but does not represent the same level of existential risk as complete data inaccessibility.
Hardware migration challenges are solvable through vendor support or emulation and are less severe than permanent data loss.
Training new administrators is a recurring operational cost, not a fundamental risk to data integrity or continuity.
When a database uses a proprietary format, the data may only be readable by that specific vendor's software. If the vendor goes out of business, discontinues the product, or a migration is required, the organization risks being permanently unable to extract or interpret its own manufacturing data - a critical operational and business continuity threat that outweighs all other concerns listed.
Concept tested: Vendor lock-in and data portability risk with proprietary formats
Source: https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/05/09/nistir-8112.pdf
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