Services your product relies on.
WHAT TO MAINTAIN
A list of every service, what it does, what it costs, and what data it touches.
WHY THE LAST ONE
Any service touching customer data is a sub-processor with obligations.
WHAT TO ASSESS BEFORE ADOPTING
Reliability history Support quality Pricing, and how it changes Security practices How difficult replacement would be
WHAT TO PLAN FOR
Any of them failing, raising prices, or closing.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT CRITICAL DEPENDENCIES
Know what you would do without them.
WHAT TO AVOID
A single dependency whose failure stops your product entirely, with no alternative.
WHAT TO MONITOR
Their status, ideally automatically.
WHY
Your first sign of their outage should not be customer reports.
WHAT TO SUBSCRIBE TO
Status notifications for everything critical.
WHAT TO REVIEW ANNUALLY
Cost against value Whether it is still used Whether terms changed
WHY TERMS
Providers change pricing models, and increases arrive quietly.
WHAT TO NEGOTIATE AT SCALE
Pricing, and support commitments.
WHAT TO DOCUMENT
How each is configured, and how to replace it.
WHAT TO AVOID
Adopting services faster than you can review or afford.
