Asset Criticality
Every CI has a criticality classification that reflects its importance to business operations. Criticality affects how alerts are prioritized in Defend, how nodes appear on the topology map, and how SLAs are routed in PSA.
Criticality Levels
| Level | Criteria | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Failure causes immediate, organization-wide business impact. No workaround exists. | Domain controllers, core switches, primary database servers, internet gateways |
| High | Failure significantly impacts a department or major business function. Limited workaround. | Application servers, VPN concentrators, backup servers, ERP systems |
| Medium | Failure impacts a team or non-critical function. Workarounds available. | Workstations, secondary servers, development environments, printers |
| Low | Failure has minimal business impact. Easily worked around or deferred. | Test devices, spare equipment, non-production resources |
Setting Criticality
Individual CI
- Open the CI's detail page
- Click the Criticality field
- Select the appropriate level
- Click Save
Bulk Assignment
- Navigate to Config Items
- Select multiple CIs using the checkboxes
- Click Bulk Actions → Set Criticality
- Choose the criticality level
- Confirm the change
How Criticality Affects Other Products
Defend Alert Escalation
When Defend detects a threat on a device, it reads the CI's criticality from CMDB:
- Critical assets generate P1 alerts with immediate notification
- High assets generate P2 alerts
- Medium and Low assets generate standard alerts
PHI-tagged critical assets receive the highest escalation priority.
PSA SLA Routing
When RMM or Defend creates a ticket in PSA, the CI's criticality can influence SLA assignment — critical assets route to tighter SLA policies.
Topology Map Display
On the topology map, node size reflects criticality:
- Critical CIs display as the largest nodes
- High CIs are slightly smaller
- Medium and Low CIs are progressively smaller
This makes it easy to spot critical infrastructure at a glance.
Review criticality classifications quarterly. As your client's business evolves, previously medium-criticality assets may become critical — and vice versa.
Next Steps
- PHI and PII Tagging — Mark assets storing protected health information
- Defend Integration — How criticality drives alert severity
- CI Relationships — Impact analysis using dependency maps