Driftansvaret

Driftansvaret refers to the operational responsibility for a system, service, or process within an organization. It encompasses accountability for the day-to-day operation, reliability, and stewardship across the service lifecycle.

The scope of driftansvaret includes ensuring availability and performance, capacity planning, security and compliance, incident management, change management, backup and recovery, monitoring, documentation, and handover between development and operations. It also involves risk management, governance, and continual improvement of the service.

Typically the driftansvar is assigned to a service owner, product owner, or operations manager who is accountable for meeting agreed service levels and for maintaining appropriate runbooks, escalation procedures, and stakeholder communication. In larger organizations, the responsibility may be shared across roles and defined in policies, service level agreements (SLAs), and operating agreements.

In practice, driftansvaret is aligned with IT service management concepts such as ITIL and is shaped by organizational risk appetite and regulatory requirements. In cloud or outsourced contexts, the distribution of driftansvar depends on the service model: with IaaS, the customer handles most operational tasks; with PaaS or SaaS, the provider assumes more of the operational load, while the customer retains governance over data, access, and security.