SI-13(1): Transferring Component Responsibilities

The si-13(1): transferring component responsibilities requirement is a reliability and resilience control with a specific compliance edge: it forces you to turn “we have redundancy” into a measurable, time-bound operational commitment. The text is short, but the operational scope can be broad because “system components” can include infrastructure (compute, storage, network), platforms (Kubernetes control plane, databases), and critical security components (identity, logging pipelines) where loss of function becomes a security and mission risk.

Most audit friction comes from two gaps. First, teams implement redundancy but never define the required timing threshold as a measurable criterion tied to mean time to failure (MTTF). Second, teams fail over successfully in production but cannot prove they did it within the organization-defined window or cannot show that the substitute component truly assumed the responsibilities (not just came online).

This page gives requirement-level guidance you can hand to engineering and operations: who owns what, what decisions to make, how to implement transfer paths, what to test, and what evidence to retain so an assessor can re-perform or validate your claims without guesswork.

Regulatory text

Requirement (verbatim): “Take system components out of service by transferring component responsibilities to substitute components no later than {{ insert: param, si-13.01_odp }} of mean time to failure.” ¹

Operator meaning: you must (1) define the organization-defined parameter (ODP) for how early you transfer responsibilities relative to MTTF, (2) implement substitute components capable of assuming the responsibilities, and (3) execute and prove the transfer happens within that defined portion of MTTF ².

Plain-English interpretation

• You cannot wait for a component to fail before planning continuity. You need a method to move the “job” of a component (traffic handling, data serving, authentication, logging, encryption, message processing) to a substitute component in time to prevent loss of function.
• “Within a portion of MTTF” is deliberately flexible. The compliance requirement is that you choose the portion, document it, and operate to it consistently ¹.
• “Take out of service” includes planned maintenance and proactive removal based on health degradation, predicted failure, end-of-life risk, or performance signals. The transfer can be automated or manual, but it must be defined, repeatable, and evidenced.

Who it applies to

Entity scope

• Federal information systems and contractor systems handling federal data implementing NIST SP 800-53 controls ³.

Operational context (where this becomes real work)

This requirement usually lands on:

• SRE / Infrastructure for compute, storage, network, and virtualization layers.
• Platform engineering for Kubernetes, service mesh, CI/CD runners, container registries.
• Application owners for stateful services and dependencies.
• Security engineering when components are security-critical (identity, key management, logging/telemetry pipelines).
• GRC / Compliance to define the ODP, ensure traceability, and maintain evidence.

Systems/components typically in scope (practical filter)

Use a simple scoping rule: include components whose failure would cause a mission impact, security monitoring blind spot, or prolonged outage beyond your stated recovery objectives. Common examples:

• Load balancers, API gateways, reverse proxies
• Databases and message queues
• Identity providers and certificate services
• Central logging/telemetry collectors
• Encryption/key management dependencies
• Core network components in a single point of failure path

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

Step 1: Assign ownership and write the control statement

Deliverables:

• Named control owner (usually SRE/platform lead) and GRC accountable owner.
• A one-page SI-13(1) implementation standard: scope, timing threshold approach, transfer patterns, testing, and evidence.

Daydream note (practical): In Daydream, map SI-13(1) to a control owner, an implementation procedure, and recurring evidence artifacts so the control operates on a cadence instead of becoming an annual scramble ¹.

Step 2: Define the organization-defined parameter (ODP) for “portion of MTTF”

You must pick a threshold and defend it. Do not treat MTTF as a theoretical vendor number you never use.

A workable approach:

1. Define MTTF source hierarchy per component type:
   • Manufacturer/vendor reliability specs where applicable
   • Cloud provider service reliability guidance where applicable
   • Internal historical failure/incident data where applicable
2. Define the “portion” as a policy rule tied to component criticality (for example: “higher criticality transfers earlier”). Keep it simple enough that engineers can apply it consistently.
3. Document rationale: why the portion is appropriate for mission impact and operational realities.

Audit-ready tip: assessors often accept a defensible engineering rationale with consistent application, even if MTTF is estimated, as long as you show the method and do not cherry-pick.

Step 3: Identify “responsibilities” and define the substitute component

For each in-scope component, capture:

• Responsibilities: what the component does (routing, state management, auth decisions, log ingestion, etc.).
• Substitute component: what will assume those responsibilities.
• Transfer trigger: planned maintenance, health check degradation, telemetry thresholds, predicted failure, manual decision.
• Transfer method: automated failover, clustering, load balancing, leader election, DNS cutover, hot spare activation, blue/green switch, or manual runbook.

Use a table for consistency:

Component	Responsibility	Substitute	Transfer method	Trigger	Verification signal
Primary DB node	Read/write transactions	Replica/cluster node	Automated failover	Health check failure / maintenance	New primary elected + app error rate stable

Step 4: Implement the transfer mechanism (engineering build)

Common implementation patterns:

• Active/active behind a load balancer for stateless services.
• Active/passive with automated promotion for stateful workloads.
• N+1 redundancy for shared services (at least one spare capacity path).
• Multi-zone/region patterns where single-zone loss is plausible.
• Manual transfer only where automation is not feasible; require a tested runbook, clear triggers, and training.

Control design expectation: the substitute component must be able to assume the responsibility in practice, not just exist on a diagram.

Step 5: Test, measure, and record that transfer happens within your defined window

Testing is where SI-13(1) becomes provable:

• Planned transfer tests (maintenance simulations).
• Failure injection (where permitted) to validate automatic transfer paths.
• Runbook drills for manual transfers.

What to measure:

• Time from trigger to substitute assuming responsibility (your internal metric definition).
• Service impact: errors, dropped logs, missed auth events, backlog growth.

Step 6: Operationalize ongoing monitoring and lifecycle hooks

Build the control into normal operations:

• Add pre-maintenance checklist requiring transfer plan and verification steps.
• Add change management gates: new critical components must declare substitute and transfer method before production.
• Add asset lifecycle hooks: EOL components must have a documented transfer/offboarding plan.
• Add incident postmortems: if a component fails without a timely transfer, record the gap and remediation.

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Keep evidence that a third party assessor can validate without interviewing half the engineering team.

Minimum artifact set:

• SI-13(1) control statement/standard with defined ODP and scope ¹.
• Component inventory marking which components are in scope for responsibility transfer.
• Architecture diagrams showing substitute components and transfer paths.
• Configuration evidence:
  • Load balancer routing/failover settings
  • Cluster configuration (leader election, quorum settings)
  • DNS or traffic management policies (as applicable)
• Runbooks for manual transfer scenarios, with owners and prerequisites.
• Test evidence:
  • Test plans and results (screenshots, logs, ticket links)
  • Observability evidence showing the responsibility moved (metrics/log excerpts)
• Maintenance and incident records demonstrating transfers occurred as designed.
• MTTF/ODP rationale:
  • Source references used for MTTF
  • How you calculated or estimated MTTF
  • Why the chosen “portion” is acceptable

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Expect these:

1. “What is your defined portion of mean time to failure, and where is it documented?” They want the ODP in writing ¹.
2. “Which components are in scope, and how did you decide?” Missing scope logic creates sampling risk.
3. “Show me evidence of a transfer within the defined window.” A diagram is not evidence.
4. “How do you know the substitute component assumed responsibilities?” They will look for verification signals, not just “instance running.”
5. “What happens during planned maintenance?” This control explicitly contemplates taking components out of service ¹.

Frequent implementation mistakes and how to avoid them

1. Mistake: Treating MTTF as a vendor spec you paste into a policy.
   Fix: define your MTTF source hierarchy and document estimation methods. Then apply it consistently.
2. Mistake: Redundancy without transfer responsibility clarity.
   Fix: list responsibilities (what must continue) and verification signals (how you know it continued).
3. Mistake: Manual failover with no drills.
   Fix: schedule runbook drills and retain ticketed evidence. If drills are not allowed in production, test in a staging environment that mirrors failover paths.
4. Mistake: Evidence scattered across tools and tribal knowledge.
   Fix: centralize artifacts in your GRC system; Daydream-style mapping of owner, procedure, and recurring evidence is the cleanest pattern for assessors ¹.
5. Mistake: Ignoring security components.
   Fix: explicitly decide whether identity, logging, key management, and detection pipelines are in scope. If excluded, document the rationale.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided in the source catalog for this requirement, so treat “enforcement” here as assessment risk and mission risk, not a claim of penalties or specific regulator actions.

Operational risk if you miss SI-13(1):

• Extended outages because failover is ad hoc.
• Security blind spots if monitoring/logging components fail without a substitute taking over.
• Assessment findings for missing ODP definition, missing test evidence, or inability to demonstrate timely transfer ¹.

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

First 30 days: Define, scope, and pick the threshold

• Assign control owner and backups; publish SI-13(1) standard with the ODP definition approach ¹.
• Build the in-scope component list from CMDB/cloud inventory and architecture diagrams.
• For top critical services, document responsibilities, substitute components, and transfer methods in a single table.
• Stand up an evidence repository with consistent naming (system, component, transfer, test).

Next 60 days: Implement transfer paths and run initial tests

• Close single points of failure for the highest-risk components first.
• Write or tighten runbooks; add pre-maintenance checklist items.
• Execute transfer tests (planned or simulated) and store results.
• Add monitoring that proves responsibility transfer occurred (routing changes, leader election events, consumer lag, auth success rates).

By 90 days: Operationalize and make it repeatable

• Add a change-management gate: no production release for new critical components without a substitute and transfer plan.
• Create a recurring cadence for transfer tests and evidence collection (monthly/quarterly per system criticality as your policy defines).
• Run a tabletop/ops review of the last outages or maintenance events; confirm SI-13(1) evidence exists for each relevant event.
• In Daydream, track SI-13(1) as a living control with owner, procedure, and recurring artifacts so audit prep becomes continuous instead of seasonal ¹.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does SI-13(1) require fully automated failover?

No. The requirement is timely transfer of responsibilities to a substitute component within your defined portion of MTTF ¹. Automation is often the safest path, but a tested manual runbook can meet the requirement if it consistently achieves the timing threshold.

How do we define “mean time to failure” for cloud-managed services?

Use a documented hierarchy: provider reliability guidance where available, then your own incident history, then conservative engineering estimates. What matters most is that your method is written down and applied consistently across comparable components.

What counts as “transferring responsibilities” for stateless microservices?

Typically traffic handling and request processing. Evidence usually comes from load balancer/service discovery changes plus metrics showing the substitute instances handled requests while the old instances were taken out of service.

Are security tools (SIEM collectors, EDR managers, key management) in scope?

They often should be, because losing them creates detection and response gaps. Decide explicitly, document the decision, and for anything in scope, define the substitute component and verification signals.

What evidence is strongest for auditors?

Test results and real operational records tied to specific components: change tickets, maintenance logs, monitoring graphs, and configuration snapshots. Pair them with your documented ODP and MTTF rationale ¹.

We have redundancy, but we’ve never measured transfer time. What’s the fastest fix?

Run a planned maintenance transfer for one critical component, capture timestamps and monitoring proof of responsibility assumption, then turn that into a reusable test template. Use that template as recurring evidence going forward.

Footnotes

1. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON

2. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON; NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5

3. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5; NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON