IT Infrastructure Disaster Recovery Planning Essentials

Lived through enough disasters to know this truth: Production is where optimism goes to die. Deployments WILL break. Systems WILL crash. You NEED to have a Disaster Recovery plan prepped. Most organizations spend $$ on fancy tech stacks but don’t realize how critical DR really is until something goes wrong. And that’s where the trouble starts. Here are a few pain points I see decision-makers miss: 👉 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘂𝗽𝘀 ≠ 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆. Sure, you’ve got backups—but what about your Recovery Point Objective (RPO)? How much data are you actually okay losing? Or your Recovery Time Objective (RTO)—how long can you afford to be down? 👉 "𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗜𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗜𝘁” 𝗗𝗥 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀. The app changes, infrastructure evolves, but you’re running on a DR plan you wrote two years ago? 👉 𝗜𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘂𝗽 𝗘𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. Most teams have “hot spares” (idle infrastructure) sitting around waiting for the next big disaster. Disasters aren’t IF, they’re WHEN. Build DR testing into your CI/CD pipeline. If you’re shipping code daily, your recovery strategy should be just as active. Turn those idle backups into active DevOps workspaces. Load test them, stress test them, break them before production does. Stop relying on manual backups or failovers. Tools like AWS Backup, Route 53, and Elastic Load Balancers exist for a reason. Automate your snapshots, automate your failovers, automate 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴. Don’t wait for a disaster to test your DR strategy. Test it now, fail fast, and fix faster. What about you—what’s your top DR strategy tip? 💬 #DisasterRecovery #CloudComputing #DevOps #Infrastructure Zelar - Secure and innovate your cloud-native journey. Follow me for insights on DevOps and tech innovation.

Waiting until you have an incident to understand which of your systems are critical can have serious consequences, sometimes even life or death consequences. Here is an unusual example: It was recently reported that hackers launched a ransomware attack on a Swiss farmer's computer system, disrupting the flow of vital data from a milking robot. See https://lnkd.in/eVhzu429. The farmer apparently did not want to pay a $10K ransom, and thought he didn't really need data on the amount of milk produced in the short term. In addition, the milking robot also worked without a computer or network connection. The cows could therefore continue to be milked. The farmer, however, apparently didn't account for the fact that the data at issue was particularly important for pregnant animals. As a result of the attack, the farmer was unable to recognize that one calf was dying in the womb, and in the end, this lack of data may have prevented the famer from saving the calf. While most of us will hopefully not find themselves in this exact situation, the takeaways are the same for all of us: 1. CONDUCT A BIA: Consider conducting a business impact assessment (BIA) to understand the criticality and maximum tolerable downtime (MTD) of all your systems, processes, and activities, from a business or commercial standpoint. Of course, such analysis should include the health and safety impact of downtime. 2. VENDORS: As part of the BIA, consider assessing the MTD for each vendor as well. This will help you decide which primary vendors require a secondary, as well as define the terms of your contract with the secondary vendors. More details on backup vendors can be found here: https://lnkd.in/e-eVNvQz. 3. UPDATE YOUR BC/DR PLAN: Once you have conducted a BIA, update your business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan to ensure that that your recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) are consistent with the MTD determined through your BIA. 4. PRACTICE: Conduct regular incident response (IR) and BC/DR tabletop exercises, as well as full failover exercises, to test and improve your ability to respond to a real event. Advice on conducting successful tabletop exercises can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eKrgV9Cg. Stay safe out there!

Your cloud provider just went dark. What's your next move? If you're scrambling for answers, you need to read this: Reflecting on the AWS outage in the winter of 2021, it’s clear that no cloud provider is immune to downtime. A single power loss took down a data center, leading to widespread disruption and delayed recovery due to network issues. If your business wasn’t impacted, consider yourself fortunate. But luck isn’t a strategy. The question is—do you have a robust contingency plan for when your cloud services fail? Here's my proven strategy to safeguard your business against cloud disruptions: ⬇️ 1. Architect for resilience  - Conduct a comprehensive infrastructure assessment - Identify cloud-ready applications - Design a multi-regional, high-availability architecture This approach minimizes single points of failure, ensuring business continuity even during regional outages. 2. Implement robust disaster recovery - Develop a detailed crisis response plan - Establish clear communication protocols - Conduct regular disaster recovery drills As the saying goes, "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Your disaster recovery plan is your business's lifeline during cloud crises. 3. Prioritize data redundancy - Implement systematic, frequent backups - Utilize multi-region data replication - Regularly test data restoration processes Remember: Your data is your most valuable asset. Protect it vigilantly. As Melissa Palmer, Independent Technology Analyst & Ransomware Resiliency Architect, emphasizes, “Proper setup, including having backups in the cloud and testing recovery processes, is crucial to ensure quick and successful recovery during a disaster.” 4. Leverage multi-cloud strategies - Distribute workloads across multiple cloud providers - Implement cloud-agnostic architectures - Utilize containerization for portability This approach not only mitigates provider-specific risks but also optimizes performance and cost-efficiency. 5. Continuous monitoring and optimization - Implement real-time performance monitoring - Utilize predictive analytics for proactive issue resolution - Regularly review and optimize your cloud infrastructure Remember, in the world of cloud computing, complacency is the enemy of resilience. Stay vigilant, stay prepared. P.S. How are you preparing your organization to handle cloud outages? I would love to read your responses. #cloud #cloudmigration #cloudstrategy #simform PS. Visit my profile, Hiren, & subscribe to my weekly newsletter: - Get product engineering insights. - Catch up on the latest software trends. - Discover successful development strategies.