NIST 800-53 REV 5 • MAINTENANCE
MA-6(1) — Preventive Maintenance
Perform preventive maintenance on {{ insert: param, ma-06.01_odp.01 }} at {{ insert: param, ma-06.01_odp.02 }}.
CMMC Practice Mapping
No direct CMMC mapping
NIST 800-171 Mapping
No direct NIST 800-171 mapping
Related Controls
No related controls listed
Supplemental Guidance
Preventive maintenance includes proactive care and the servicing of system components to maintain organizational equipment and facilities in satisfactory operating condition. Such maintenance provides for the systematic inspection, tests, measurements, adjustments, parts replacement, detection, and correction of incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major defects. The primary goal of preventive maintenance is to avoid or mitigate the consequences of equipment failures. Preventive maintenance is designed to preserve and restore equipment reliability by replacing worn components before they fail. Methods of determining what preventive (or other) failure management policies to apply include original equipment manufacturer recommendations; statistical failure records; expert opinion; maintenance that has already been conducted on similar equipment; requirements of codes, laws, or regulations within a jurisdiction; or measured values and performance indications.
Practitioner Notes
Preventive maintenance means performing regular, scheduled upkeep to prevent failures before they happen — like changing oil in a car. This applies to both hardware and software systems.
Example 1: Schedule quarterly server maintenance windows for firmware updates, disk health checks (S.M.A.R.T. monitoring), fan cleaning, and UPS battery testing. Create recurring tasks in your ticketing system to ensure these are not forgotten.
Example 2: Set up automated health checks using PowerShell scripts or monitoring tools (Nagios, PRTG, Zabbix) that run daily and check disk space, event logs for hardware errors, certificate expiration dates, and backup success status. Address warnings before they become failures.