DSS01: Managed Operations

To meet the dss01: managed operations requirement, you must run day-to-day IT operations as a controlled, measurable service: defined procedures, clear ownership, monitored performance, managed jobs and infrastructure, and retained evidence that operations happened as designed. Operationalize DSS01 by mapping each operations activity to an owner, a runbook, monitoring, and audit-ready logs. ¹

Key takeaways:

• DSS01 expects documented, repeatable operations (not tribal knowledge) with accountable owners and runbooks. ²
• Monitoring, job scheduling, and incident/escalation handling must produce evidence you can show an auditor. ³
• The common failure mode is “we do it, but we can’t prove it”; build an evidence pack per operational service. ²

DSS01: Managed Operations is the COBIT 2019 objective that forces operational discipline into IT delivery. If you own compliance, GRC, or IT risk, treat DSS01 as the control objective that asks, “Can the organization operate technology reliably, predictably, and with provable control?” COBIT is a framework, so your success is judged less by perfect wording and more by whether operations are defined, consistently executed, monitored, and evidenced. ²

In practice, DSS01 sits at the seam between IT operations (ITOM), security operations (SecOps), and service management. It touches batch and scheduled jobs, infrastructure and cloud operations, endpoint/server administration, monitoring and alerting, backups/restore operations, production access routines, and the handoffs that fail during outages. Your goal is to reduce operational risk from informal processes: missed jobs, silent monitoring failures, undocumented changes, and inconsistent escalations. ³

This page gives requirement-level implementation guidance you can assign to teams immediately: who owns what, what procedures must exist, what evidence to retain, how auditors test DSS01, and a practical execution plan you can run as a CCO/GRC lead with IT operations leadership. ²

Regulatory text

Excerpt (framework summary): “COBIT 2019 objective DSS01 implementation expectation.” ¹

Operator interpretation: COBIT is not a statute, but DSS01 functions like a requirement in assurance programs: operate IT with defined, controlled procedures and demonstrate, with evidence, that operations are performed, monitored, and corrected when they deviate. You should be able to show an auditor (internal or external) that operations are not ad hoc, and that failures trigger timely detection, escalation, and remediation. ²

Plain-English meaning (what DSS01 is asking for)

DSS01 expects you to:

• Define operations work (what gets done, by whom, how, and when).
• Execute consistently through runbooks, job schedules, and operational checks.
• Monitor and respond using alerting, on-call routines, and ticketed follow-up.
• Measure performance and fix recurring issues through problem management and continual improvement.
• Prove it happened with retained logs, tickets, checklists, approvals, and reports. ³

Who it applies to

Entity scope

• Any enterprise IT organization using COBIT 2019 as a governance and control framework, including regulated entities that map COBIT to their control environment. ²

Operational context (where auditors look)

DSS01 is most testable where there is production impact:

• Production infrastructure operations (on-prem, cloud, or hybrid)
• Monitoring and alerting (SIEM/observability/NOC tooling)
• Job scheduling and batch processing
• Backups and restore operations
• Standard operating procedures for recurring tasks (patch windows, certificate renewals, key rotations, capacity checks)
• Third-party operated services where you still own outcomes (outsourced NOC, managed hosting, SaaS operations). Use “third party” governance to make sure you receive operational evidence, not just a promise. ²

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

Step 1: Define the “operations service catalog” you will control

Create a short list of operational services that matter to business continuity and audit scope. Examples:

• Production monitoring and alert response
• Backup and restore operations
• Job scheduling/batch operations
• User provisioning operations for privileged or production roles
• Infrastructure maintenance (patching, configuration baselines)

Deliverable: Operations Service Catalog with owners and system scope.

Step 2: Assign accountable ownership (RACI) and escalation paths

For each operational service, assign:

• Service owner (accountable for outcomes and evidence)
• Operators (execute tasks)
• Approvers (where approvals are required)
• Escalation (on-call rotation, manager escalation, incident commander when relevant)

Exam tip: Auditors often test ownership by sampling a ticket and asking who is accountable for the underlying control.

Step 3: Write runbooks that are executable, not aspirational

For each service, create a runbook that includes:

• Trigger (time-based schedule, alert condition, request type)
• Preconditions (access, tools, dependencies)
• Steps (numbered actions, commands, screenshots where needed)
• Validation (what “good” looks like, what to check)
• Escalation criteria (when to page, when to open an incident)
• Evidence produced (log location, ticket fields, report name)

Minimum bar: Another qualified operator can follow the runbook without Slack back-and-forth.

Step 4: Implement monitoring and “detection-to-ticket” discipline

Define:

• What is monitored (service health, job success/failure, backup success, capacity thresholds)
• Alert routing (on-call tool, shared queue)
• Required response workflow (acknowledge, triage, remediate, document)

Control intent: Operations issues must become tracked work. If alerts die in email inboxes, you will fail DSS01 in practice. ³

Step 5: Control job scheduling and batch operations

Put basic governance around scheduled jobs:

• Inventory critical jobs (name, purpose, schedule, owner, upstream/downstream dependencies)
• Monitor job outcomes and capture failures
• Define restart and rollback steps
• Record changes to schedules and scripts through change control (tie to your change management control set)

Evidence focus: A sampled job failure should show: alert, ticket, operator actions, resolution, and prevention steps if recurring.

Step 6: Establish operational check routines (and keep the output)

Common checks include:

• Daily: monitoring dashboard review, failed jobs review, backup status review
• Weekly: capacity trend review, patch/maintenance review
• Monthly/quarterly: restore tests, operational metrics review, recurring incident/problem review

You can choose cadence as appropriate. The audit requirement is consistency and evidence, not a specific interval. ²

Step 7: Build a DSS01 evidence pack (mapped, repeatable, reviewable)

Create a single folder/wiki space per operational service with:

• RACI and on-call/escalation documentation
• Runbooks and SOPs
• Tooling screenshots/config exports for monitoring and alert routing
• Sample artifacts (tickets, reports, logs)
• KPI/KRI reporting and meeting notes where operations performance is reviewed

This is the “make it easy to audit” step, and it closes the common gap: controlled operations exist but cannot be demonstrated. ²

Step 8: Manage third parties as part of operations

If a third party runs part of your operations:

• Require access to evidence (tickets, monitoring summaries, uptime/incident summaries, job run reports)
• Define notification SLAs for incidents and operational exceptions
• Confirm your team can independently validate service health where feasible
• Review third-party deliverables in an operations governance meeting and keep minutes

You remain accountable for outcomes even if execution is outsourced. ²

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Use this table as your audit-ready checklist.

DSS01 area	Evidence (examples)	What auditors test
Ownership & accountability	RACI, on-call schedule, escalation matrix	Clear accountability; coverage during off-hours
Defined procedures	Runbooks/SOPs with version control	Procedures exist and match actual practice
Monitoring & response	Alert configuration export, dashboard screenshots, tickets from alerts	Alerts route correctly; response is documented
Job scheduling/batch	Job inventory, scheduler logs, job failure tickets	Failures detected, triaged, resolved
Backup operations	Backup reports, restore test records, tickets for failures	Backups run; failures tracked; restores proven
Operational performance review	Ops metrics reports, problem review notes, recurring issue backlog	Continuous improvement loop exists

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

1. “Show me evidence that monitoring is working.” Expect requests for alert routing rules, a sample of alerts, and corresponding tickets.
2. “How do you know scheduled jobs ran successfully?” You need job run logs plus a process for exceptions.
3. “Where are your procedures, and who approved them?” Runbooks should have owners and change history.
4. “What happens when the primary operator is out?” On-call coverage and cross-training become audit topics.
5. “How do you oversee outsourced operations?” Provide third-party reports, your review notes, and escalation records.

Hangup: teams often provide tool screenshots without connecting them to a workflow and retained records. Tie tooling to tickets and outcomes.

Frequent implementation mistakes (and how to avoid them)

• Mistake: Runbooks are PDFs nobody uses. Fix: embed runbooks into ticket templates and require links in ticket closure notes.
• Mistake: Monitoring exists, but alerts are noisy so teams ignore them. Fix: tune alerts, define severity, and require documented disposition for high-severity alerts.
• Mistake: Job scheduling is “owned by the app team” with no centralized view. Fix: maintain a critical job inventory and require failure tickets routed to a central queue.
• Mistake: Backups are treated as a tooling checkbox. Fix: retain backup success reports plus restore test evidence tied to tickets.
• Mistake: Outsourced ops equals outsourced accountability. Fix: contract for evidence access and review deliverables routinely; store review artifacts.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided for DSS01 in the source catalog. Treat DSS01 as an assurance and operational resilience requirement: failure typically shows up as outages, data loss, missed SLAs, and audit findings that cascade into broader control deficiencies (incident management, change control, access management, and business continuity). ²

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

You asked for speed. Use phases you can execute without debating maturity models.

First 30 days (stabilize and make audit scope explicit)

• Confirm in-scope systems and operational services for DSS01 (production first).
• Assign service owners and publish an escalation matrix.
• Inventory monitoring tools, job schedulers, and backup tooling; identify where evidence lives.
• Draft “minimum viable runbooks” for the highest-risk operational services.
• Create a DSS01 evidence pack structure (folders, naming, retention expectations).

Days 31–60 (standardize execution and evidence)

• Convert runbooks into ticket templates/checklists for recurring tasks.
• Implement “alert-to-ticket” workflow for critical alerts (or validate it exists and is used).
• Build critical job inventory and define failure handling workflow.
• Start an operations performance review cadence (agenda, metrics, minutes retention).
• For third parties, request operational reporting and map it to your evidence pack.

Days 61–90 (prove operating effectiveness)

• Run a tabletop audit: sample recent alerts, job failures, and backup exceptions; confirm each has end-to-end evidence.
• Tune monitoring noise and close evidence gaps found in sampling.
• Add cross-training coverage and update on-call documentation where you see single points of failure.
• Formalize control mapping: each DSS01 expectation mapped to an artifact and an owner.
• If you use Daydream for GRC workflows, configure a DSS01 control and evidence collection workflow so artifacts are requested, stored, and refreshed on schedule without manual chasing. ²

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the fastest way to show compliance with the dss01: managed operations requirement?

Produce an evidence pack for a small set of critical operational services: owners, runbooks, monitoring-to-ticket samples, and job/backup reports. Auditors reward traceability from procedure to execution to recorded outcome. ²

Do we need a specific ITIL tool to meet DSS01?

No specific tool is required, but you need consistent workflows and retained records. A ticketing system plus monitoring that can generate tracked work usually satisfies the operational evidence expectation. ²

How do we handle DSS01 if operations are outsourced to a third party?

Keep accountability internal, and contract for operational evidence: incident summaries, ticket extracts, monitoring reports, and escalation notifications. Retain your review notes to prove oversight. ²

What’s the minimum set of artifacts auditors typically ask for under DSS01?

Runbooks/SOPs, on-call and escalation documentation, monitoring configuration evidence, and sampled tickets showing detection through resolution. Job run logs and backup/restore evidence are common add-ons for production systems. ³

How granular do runbooks need to be?

They need to be executable by someone other than the author and should specify validation steps and escalation criteria. If an operator can close a ticket without referencing the runbook, the runbook is probably too vague.

Can we pass DSS01 with “tribal knowledge” if the team is experienced?

Experience helps operations, but it does not produce audit evidence. DSS01 expects defined procedures and records that show consistent execution and response. ²

Footnotes

1. ISACA COBIT overview; OSA COBIT 2019 objective mapping

2. ISACA COBIT overview

3. OSA COBIT 2019 objective mapping