Prepare for the unexpected with a solid disaster recovery plan. Learn how to protect your data and minimize downtime in case of failures or disasters.
Key Recovery Metrics
RTO
Recovery Time Objective - How quickly must you recover?
- • Minutes: Mission-critical systems
- • Hours: Important business applications
- • Days: Non-critical systems
RPO
Recovery Point Objective - How much data can you afford to lose?
- • Zero: Continuous replication needed
- • Minutes: Very frequent backups
- • Hours/Days: Regular backups acceptable
Disaster Scenarios to Plan For
Hardware Failure
Risk: Disk failure, server hardware problems
Mitigation: Regular snapshots, RAID if using dedicated servers, move to redundant cloud infrastructure
Human Error
Risk: Accidental deletion, configuration mistakes
Mitigation: Multiple backups with retention, test restorations, access controls
Security Breach
Risk: Ransomware, data theft, system compromise
Mitigation: Offsite backups, immutable backups, security monitoring, incident response plan
Datacenter Outage
Risk: Power failure, network issues, natural disasters
Mitigation: Multi-region deployments, offsite backups, documented failover procedures
Backup Strategy
Implement 3-2-1 Backup Rule
- 3copies of data (1 production + 2 backups)
- 2different storage types (cloud snapshot + external storage)
- 1copy offsite/off-platform
Automated Backup Schedule
- Hourly: Critical databases with transaction logs
- Daily: Production systems and important data
- Weekly: Full system snapshots
- Monthly: Long-term archival backups
Multi-Region Strategy
Primary/Secondary Setup
- Primary Region: Main production environment (e.g., New York)
- Secondary Region: Standby environment (e.g., Los Angeles)
- Data Replication: Regular snapshots copied to secondary region
- DNS Failover: Update DNS to point to secondary region if primary fails
Snapshot Replication Script
#!/bin/bash
# Replicate snapshots to secondary region
PRIMARY_REGION="nyc"
SECONDARY_REGION="lax"
INSTANCE_ID="your-instance-id"
# Create snapshot in primary
echo "Creating snapshot in $PRIMARY_REGION..."
SNAPSHOT_ID=$(openstack server image create \
--name "dr-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)" \
$INSTANCE_ID -f value -c id)
# Wait for snapshot to complete
while [ "$(openstack image show $SNAPSHOT_ID -f value -c status)" != "active" ]; do
sleep 30
done
# Download snapshot
echo "Downloading snapshot..."
openstack image save --file /tmp/snapshot.qcow2 $SNAPSHOT_ID
# Upload to secondary region
echo "Uploading to $SECONDARY_REGION..."
openstack --os-region-name $SECONDARY_REGION image create \
--file /tmp/snapshot.qcow2 \
--disk-format qcow2 \
--container-format bare \
"dr-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)"
# Cleanup
rm /tmp/snapshot.qcow2
echo "DR backup complete"Testing Your DR Plan
Full DR test with complete failover
Restore test from backup
Verify backups are running
DR Test Checklist
- □ Backups are completing successfully
- □ Can restore from most recent backup
- □ Restored data is usable and complete
- □ Can launch instances in secondary region
- □ DNS failover works as expected
- □ Application functions in DR environment
- □ RTO and RPO targets are met
- □ Team knows their roles and responsibilities
- □ Documentation is up to date
Documentation Requirements
Maintain these critical documents:
DR Runbook
Step-by-step recovery procedures
Contact List
Who to call during disaster
System Architecture
Diagrams of infrastructure
Configuration Backup
All server configurations
Credential Vault
Secure access to critical passwords
Service Dependencies
What depends on what
Cost vs. Recovery Time
Remember
The cost of downtime usually far exceeds the cost of proper DR planning. Calculate your potential losses from an hour, day, or week of downtime to justify DR investment.