How Recovery Assurance works

From Recovery Questions to Evidence

Recovery Assurance follows one lifecycle: Discover, Protect, Validate, Evidence, Improve. Each stage builds on the last, and the cycle repeats as the environment changes.

The lifecycle

01Discover · Identify critical services, what they depend on and how fast they must return.02Protect · Align backup, retention, security and recovery design with what the business needs.03Validate · Test recovery in a controlled way and measure the results.04Evidence · Record what was tested, what happened and what remains uncertain.05Improve · Fix the gaps that matter most, then test again as things change.

Experiencing an active incident? Recovery comes first. Contact us to discuss recovery assistance. We will confirm availability and next steps. Once you are stable, the lessons from the incident become the starting point for Discover. About Emergency Recovery →

Stage 1 · Discover

Begin with the Business, Not the Technology

Recovery priorities come from the business. Before testing anything, we work with leadership and service owners to understand which operations matter most, what they depend on, and how long the organization can tolerate disruption.

Critical services and the people who own them
Supporting systems, data and third parties
Recovery time and data-loss expectations
Known assumptions and past incidents

Stage 2 · Protect

Make Sure the Right Capabilities Are in Place

Discovery often shows that protection is uneven: some services are well covered, others depend on assumptions. This stage aligns security operations, backup, disaster recovery and archive with the priorities agreed in Discover.

Protection mapped to critical services
Separation and access controls reviewed
Recovery sequence and runbooks defined
Responsibilities agreed

Stage 3 · Validate

Test Recovery in Ways That Fit the Objective

The right method depends on objectives, scope and risk. Most organizations combine several over time.

Documentation review

A structured review of plans, runbooks and procedures for gaps and drift.

Tabletop exercise

A facilitated walk-through of a realistic scenario with the people who would respond.

Component recovery test

Restoring specific systems or data to check that the steps and timings hold.

Coordinated recovery exercise

A broader exercise that tests dependencies, sequence and teams together.

Stage 4 · Evidence

Turn Technical Activity into Executive Understanding

Evidence should be understandable, current and actionable. It is written for the people who make decisions, not only for technical teams.

Element	What it records
Scope	Which services, systems and providers were included in this review
Validation activity	The methods used and what was tested
Observed results	What actually happened, including timings where measured
Exceptions	Where results differed from expectations, and any accepted risk
Recommendations	Prioritized improvements, each with an owner
Next review	When and under what conditions recovery will be revalidated

Stage 5 · Improve

Recoverability Changes as the Environment Changes

Prioritize

Focus on the gaps that matter most to critical services.

Assign

Give each improvement an owner and a realistic timeline.

Retest

Confirm that changes improved recovery, not just configuration.

Review

Revisit priorities after major changes and on an agreed schedule.

Ways to engage

Three Ways to Work with 010

Start wherever you are. Some organizations want to understand their exposure first. Others come to us with a migration or a recovery project already in hand. Discovery and validation are built into each.

“Help me understand my exposure.”

Assess and plan

Recovery Assurance Assessment
Business impact analysis
Business continuity and disaster recovery planning
Recovery architecture
Executive advisory

About the assessment →

“Help me deliver a project.”

Implement and recover

Backup and disaster recovery deployment
Cloud, infrastructure and provider migrations
Remediation of known gaps
Controlled recovery exercises

Architecture, Migration & Advisory →

“Help me keep recovery ready.”

Operate and govern

Managed protection
Scheduled recovery validation
Exception tracking and reporting
Ongoing advisory

Ongoing Recovery Assurance →

“We’ve already been hit.”

Emergency Recovery

If ransomware, a major outage or data loss has already stopped your operations, contact us to discuss recovery assistance. We will confirm availability and next steps. We help contain the incident, find out what can be recovered, restore the services that matter most in the right order, and record what was done for leadership and your insurer. You don’t need to be a 010 client. Once you are back up and running, what we learned becomes the starting point for Recovery Assurance.