CP-7(3): Priority of Service

CP-7(3): Priority of Service requires you to put priority-of-service provisions into your alternate processing site agreements so your organization can meet defined availability requirements, including recovery time objectives (RTOs). Operationally, this means contracting for guaranteed recovery capacity and explicit service priority during regional or widespread disruptions. ¹

Key takeaways:

• Put priority-of-service language directly into alternate site contracts, not just internal DR plans. ¹
• Tie contract terms to your availability requirements and RTOs so the alternate site can realistically meet them. ¹
• Keep assessor-ready evidence: executed agreements, capacity commitments, and proof you validated the terms against recovery objectives. ¹

The cp-7(3): priority of service requirement is one of those resilience controls that fails in real incidents for a simple reason: the organization assumed the alternate processing site would “be there when needed,” but the contract never guaranteed priority access or capacity during a surge event. CP-7(3) closes that gap by forcing the priority decision into the binding agreement that governs the alternate site relationship. ¹

For a CCO, compliance officer, or GRC lead, the fastest way to operationalize this is to treat CP-7(3) as a third-party contracting requirement with measurable acceptance criteria. You are not writing a DR narrative; you are making sure procurement, legal, and continuity teams have executed terms that align to your availability requirements and RTOs. ¹

This page gives requirement-level implementation guidance you can hand to the business: who owns it, what to change in contracts, what “good” evidence looks like in an assessment, and how to avoid common audit failures like vague “best efforts” language or untested assumptions about reserved capacity.

Regulatory text

Requirement (quoted): “Develop alternate processing site agreements that contain priority-of-service provisions in accordance with availability requirements (including recovery time objectives).” ¹

What the operator must do: ensure that any agreement governing an alternate processing site (colocation, hot/warm site provider, cloud recovery environment, secondary data center services, disaster recovery as a service) includes explicit priority-of-service commitments that align to your availability requirements, including your RTOs. Your internal BCP/DR plan cannot compensate for a contract that allows the third party to allocate scarce recovery capacity to other customers first. ¹

Plain-English interpretation

You need a written, executed agreement with your alternate processing site that answers: “During a widespread outage when everyone is failing over, do we get guaranteed capacity and an agreed place in line that supports our RTO?” CP-7(3) expects that answer to be “yes,” supported by contract language and mapped to your stated availability requirements. ¹

In practice, “priority of service” usually means one or more of the following, written into the agreement:

• Reserved recovery capacity (compute, storage, network, seats, racks, power, connectivity) for your use.
• Priority queueing for provisioning, support response, and restoration activities during declared disasters.
• Defined escalation paths and service credits/remedies if priority commitments are not met.
• Constraints on the provider oversubscribing the same recovery capacity to multiple customers.

Who it applies to

Entity scope: Federal information systems and contractor systems handling federal data. ¹

Operational context: Any system or service where you claim you can recover processing at an alternate site to meet mission/business needs, and that alternate site is governed by an agreement (MSA/SOW, cloud terms, DRaaS contract, inter-agency agreement, shared services agreement). CP-7(3) is especially relevant when the alternate site is multi-tenant or regional, because contention risk rises during large-scale events. ¹

Control ownership (typical):

• Accountable: Business continuity / resilience leader or system owner accountable for availability requirements and RTOs.
• Responsible: Procurement + legal for contract language; IT/service continuity for technical capacity requirements.
• Consulted: Security/GRC for requirement mapping and assessor narrative; finance for commitments and remedies.

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

1) Inventory alternate processing site dependencies

Create an inventory of “alternate processing sites” as they exist in your environment. Include:

• Secondary data centers and colocation
• Cloud-based recovery environments (secondary region/account/subscription)
• DRaaS providers
• Managed hosting “warm standby” contracts
• Shared service arrangements where another entity hosts your recovery processing

Deliverable: a list of in-scope agreements with contract owner, renewal date, and covered systems.

2) Define the availability requirements that drive priority

CP-7(3) explicitly ties priority-of-service to “availability requirements (including recovery time objectives).” Translate your BIA outputs into contract-relevant requirements:

• System/service RTOs and recovery sequence (tiering)
• Minimum recovery capacity needed to meet those RTOs
• Support expectations during disaster (staffing, escalation, communications cadence)
• Any declared disaster definition that triggers priority terms (your declaration vs provider’s declaration)

Deliverable: a one-page “contract requirements addendum” per tier or per service family that procurement can attach to SOWs.

3) Gap-assess current agreements against priority-of-service needs

Review each agreement for the clauses that decide whether you have priority in a real incident:

• Is there explicit priority language, or only “commercially reasonable efforts”?
• Is capacity reserved, or is recovery capacity shared and uncommitted?
• Are RTO-related commitments measurable (provisioning time, resource availability, support response)?
• Are triggers defined (who declares, how invoked, how quickly provider responds)?
• Are subcontractors involved (telecom, hosting, cloud) and are they also bound?

Deliverable: a contract gap matrix with “meets / partially meets / does not meet” and the remediation path (addendum, renegotiation, alternate provider, compensating architecture).

4) Negotiate and execute priority-of-service provisions

Add or strengthen terms so your priority aligns with your RTOs. Clauses to push for:

• Priority tier: your service class during disaster events (e.g., “priority restoration”).
• Reserved capacity: named capacity or minimum pool guaranteed for you, with location/region specificity.
• Invocation mechanics: how to request failover, who can request, and expected response time from provider.
• Provider obligations: staffing, status reporting, and escalation contacts during incident windows.
• Testing support: provider participation in DR tests and evidence outputs.
• Remedies: credits, termination rights, or other remedies if commitments are missed.

Deliverable: executed agreement(s) with priority-of-service provisions traceable to system RTOs. ¹

5) Validate that the agreement is operationally feasible

Paper commitments fail if engineering has not verified feasibility. Run a validation cycle:

• Confirm the reserved capacity maps to your current production footprint (and expected growth).
• Confirm networking, identity, and data replication prerequisites are included (or contracted separately).
• Confirm the alternate site support model matches your recovery runbooks.
• Confirm the provider can meet your sequencing needs (tier 0 before tier 2, etc.).

Deliverable: sign-off from system owner and continuity lead that contract terms support the recovery model.

6) Operationalize into third-party lifecycle governance

Make CP-7(3) repeatable:

• Add a “priority-of-service required” flag to third-party intake for any alternate processing site.
• Add contract clause templates to procurement playbooks.
• Add a renewal checklist item: “priority-of-service still aligns with current RTOs.”
• Track evidence on a defined cadence (aligned to contract renewal and DR test cycles).

Where Daydream fits naturally: many teams lose time chasing the “latest executed SOW + addendum + DR test evidence.” Daydream can serve as the system of record for mapping CP-7(3) to an owner, a procedure, and recurring artifacts, so you can answer assessor questions quickly without rebuilding the trail each audit cycle. ¹

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Assessors typically want to see that the requirement is (1) contractually binding and (2) aligned to your availability requirements and RTOs. Retain:

• Executed alternate processing site agreements (MSA/SOW/addenda) with priority-of-service language. ¹
• A mapping from systems to availability requirements and RTOs, and how those map to the contracted alternate site. ¹
• Contract gap assessment and approval records (legal/procurement/security sign-offs).
• DR test plans and after-action reports showing the provider’s role and outcomes tied to RTO objectives.
• Evidence of reserved capacity (provider attestations, capacity schedules, order forms, service descriptions).
• Renewal reviews showing you revalidated priority terms when RTOs or architecture changed.

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Expect questions like:

• “Show me the clause where the alternate site grants you priority-of-service.” ¹
• “Which availability requirements and RTOs does this agreement support, and how did you determine capacity is sufficient?” ¹
• “What happens if there is a regional disaster and multiple customers invoke DR at once?”
• “Who can invoke the priority provision, and what is the communication/escalation path?”
• “How do you know the agreement is still valid and aligned after system growth or migrations?”

Hangups that slow audits:

• Agreements stored in procurement tools with missing addenda or outdated versions.
• Priority language exists only in marketing/service descriptions, not the executed contract.
• RTOs exist, but no traceability to alternate site capacity commitments.

Frequent implementation mistakes and how to avoid them

Mistake	Why it fails CP-7(3)	How to avoid it
Relying on internal DR plans without contract priority language	CP-7(3) is about “agreements” containing priority provisions. 1	Require a contract clause check before onboarding/renewal.
Accepting “best effort” restoration	During a wide event, you may be deprioritized	Require explicit priority tiering and reserved capacity language.
Reserving capacity without tying it to RTO tiers	You can pay for standby but still miss RTO due to sequencing and dependencies	Map tiered services to capacity and failover order; confirm dependencies (network, IAM, replication).
Forgetting subcontractors	Your provider may depend on other parties who do not owe you priority	Flow down priority and restoration obligations where feasible; document dependencies and compensating controls.
No evidence trail	You will fail on “show me” even if you believe you’re covered	Centralize executed agreements, mappings, and test artifacts in a control evidence workspace.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided in the source catalog for this requirement. The practical risk is operational: during large-scale disruptions, shared recovery capacity becomes scarce. If your agreement does not grant priority-of-service aligned to your RTOs, you can face extended downtime, contractual breaches to your customers, and mission impact. CP-7(3) exists to make capacity and priority a contractual commitment rather than an assumption. ¹

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

Day 0–30: Stabilize and scope

• Identify all alternate processing site agreements and owners.
• Pull executed contracts and addenda into a single repository for review.
• Collect availability requirements and RTOs for in-scope systems.
• Draft a priority-of-service clause template and a capacity schedule template for procurement/legal review.

Day 31–60: Remediate highest-risk gaps

• Complete a gap assessment per agreement against RTO-driven requirements.
• Prioritize remediation for systems with the tightest RTOs and most shared dependency risk.
• Negotiate addenda or SOW changes that add priority-of-service provisions aligned to RTOs. ¹
• Define who can invoke priority, escalation contacts, and communications expectations.

Day 61–90: Prove operability and lock evidence

• Validate feasibility with IT (capacity, networking, replication, runbooks).
• Run or update a DR test that exercises provider invocation and communications.
• Build an assessor-ready evidence package per agreement (contract excerpt, mapping to RTO, test artifact).
• Operationalize renewal triggers: any RTO change or architecture change prompts contract review.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does CP-7(3) require a separate contract, or can it be an addendum?

Either is fine as long as the executed agreement governing the alternate processing site contains priority-of-service provisions aligned to availability requirements and RTOs. Keep the signed addendum with the governing MSA/SOW in your evidence set. ¹

We use cloud cross-region recovery. What is the “alternate processing site agreement”?

It’s the cloud services agreement plus any enterprise terms, order forms, or service schedules that define capacity, support, and restoration commitments. Your evidence should point to where priority treatment and capacity commitments are contractually defined.

What does “priority-of-service” look like for a multi-tenant DRaaS provider?

You want written terms covering reserved recovery capacity, your queue priority during surge events, invocation mechanics, and provider obligations during disaster windows. If the provider will not commit, document the gap and implement compensating controls (for example, dedicated capacity or architectural redundancy).

How tightly must the contract map to RTOs?

Tight enough that a reviewer can trace: system RTO → required recovery capacity/support → explicit contractual commitment. If you cannot show that chain, expect a finding even if the relationship “works in practice.” ¹

Do we need to test the priority clause itself?

CP-7(3) focuses on agreements, but testing is the most credible way to prove the provision is operationally meaningful. Run DR exercises that include provider engagement steps (invocation, escalation, status reporting) and retain the after-action report.

Who should own CP-7(3) in a three-lines-of-defense model?

First line typically owns the contracts and recovery capability (IT/BCP/system owners). Second line (GRC) should set the requirement, review contracts for minimum clauses, and manage evidence. Internal audit can validate design and operating effectiveness against CP-7(3). ¹

Footnotes

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