Disaster Recovery

Recovery Plans Tested Before They Are Needed

010 helps organizations turn disaster recovery plans into defined, executable and validated recovery capabilities, aligned with critical business services. 010 provides recovery architecture, replication, orchestration, recovery planning and controlled testing.

Example recovery profile

ServiceClient portal and its databasePriorityTier 1ObjectiveRecovery time and data loss agreed with the businessRunbookSequenced steps with named ownersValidationScheduled recovery exerciseEvidenceFindings and exceptions recorded

The readiness gap

A Documented Plan Is Not Necessarily an Executable Plan

Priorities may be unclear

Plans often focus on systems rather than restoring critical business services first.

Dependencies may be incomplete

Identity, networks, providers and internal connections are easy to overlook.

Runbooks may be outdated

Changes to cloud services and platforms leave static runbooks behind.

Objectives may be untested

Recovery time and data-loss targets remain assumptions until they are tested.

Plans and runbooks

What a Disaster Recovery Plan and Its Runbooks Should Cover

The plan

The disruptions that could affect the organization, and their impact
Recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO)
Backup processes that support those objectives
Regular testing, with the plan updated as things change

Each runbook

Scope and boundaries
Invocation criteria and who can declare a disaster
Roles and responsibilities, with backups
Prerequisites, access and tools
Sequence of steps, with expected timings
Validation points before moving on
Exception handling and rollback
Completion, failback and review

Recover what matters first

Recovery Priorities Should Begin with Business Impact

Identify services

Which business services are critical?

Map capabilities

Systems, people and providers behind each one.

Assess impact

Operational, financial and reputational effect of downtime.

Set priority

Recovery order and objectives based on impact.

Align the plan

Technical recovery matched to business priorities.

Recovery objectives

Move from Estimated Targets to Better-Informed Objectives

RTO, the recovery time objective, is the target time to restore a service after disruption.

RPO, the recovery point objective, is the acceptable amount of data loss, measured as time since the last usable copy.

Both should mature from assumption to observed result.

Assumed target
A number nobody has tested.
Defined objective
Agreed with the business.
Designed capability
Recovery built to meet it.
Observed result
Measured in an exercise.
Improved objective
Adjusted based on what was learned.

Recovery dependencies

Critical Applications Rarely Recover in Isolation

A recovery sequence is only as practical as the dependencies it recognizes.

Technical

Databases, servers, storage and cloud infrastructure.

Access

Directory services, sign-in, multi-factor authentication and credentials.

People

Specialists, providers and the people who make decisions.

Operational

Upstream inputs, downstream outputs and client communication.

Recovery governance

Everyone Must Know Who Decides, Who Acts and Who Validates

Actual roles must be defined for each organization.

Executive sponsor

Authorizes the recovery strategy and key decisions.

Recovery coordinator

Coordinates execution and communication.

Technical teams

Restore infrastructure, systems and data.

Business owners

Confirm services work before they go live.

External providers

Support third-party dependencies.

Test the plan

Validation Reveals What Documentation Cannot

The appropriate method depends on objectives and scope.

Documentation review

Plans and runbooks checked for gaps and drift.

Tabletop exercise

A realistic scenario walked through with the response team.

Component recovery test

Specific systems or data restored and timed.

Coordinated recovery exercise

Dependencies, sequence and teams tested together.