Disaster Recovery (DR): how to keep an incident from shutting your business down

Ransomware that encrypts your servers, an employee who deletes the wrong folder, a prolonged outage at your cloud provider or a flood in the office. Sooner or later, something interrupts the operation. The question that really matters is not whether it will happen, but how long it will take your company to get running again and how much data it will lose along the way.

What is a disaster recovery (DR) plan?

A disaster recovery plan is the set of processes, tools and responsibilities defined in advance to restore your critical systems and data after a serious incident. It is not a document that sits in a drawer: it is a tested plan that states what is restored first, who does what and how long it should take.

DR is not the same as backup

This is the most common confusion. A backup is a copy of your data; disaster recovery is the ability to operate again using that data —and the systems that process it— within an acceptable time. Having backups without a DR plan is like having a fire extinguisher without knowing how to use it or where it is: the copy exists, but no one knows how long it will take to get the ERP, the email and the database working again.

RTO and RPO: the two metrics that define your plan

Every DR plan revolves around two numbers:

• RTO (Recovery Time Objective): how long a system can be down before the impact becomes severe. One hour? One day?
• RPO (Recovery Point Objective): how much data you can afford to lose, measured in time. If you back up every 24 hours, you could lose up to a day of information.

Defining the RTO and RPO of each critical system is what turns a wish —come back fast— into a measurable, budgetable plan.

What should a DR plan include?

• An inventory of critical systems and data, prioritized by impact.
• Automated, encrypted backups in a separate location (ideally off-site or in another cloud region).
• RTO and RPO defined per system.
• Clear roles and responsibilities: who declares the disaster, who executes, who communicates.
• A step-by-step restoration procedure.
• Periodic testing.

The most expensive mistake: backups that were never tested

Most companies that suffer a major loss did have backups. The problem was discovering, in the middle of the crisis, that the copy was corrupt, incomplete or that restoring it took three days instead of three hours. A DR plan that is not tested is an assumption, not a guarantee. Periodic tests —restoration drills— are what separate the company that recovers in hours from the one that closes for weeks.

How to get started

You do not need a perfect plan from day one; you need to start with what is critical. Identify the three or four systems your company cannot operate without, define their RTO and RPO, secure off-site copies and test the restoration. At Cytlas we help companies in Panama and across the region design, implement and test disaster recovery plans tailored to their operation and budget. Request a free assessment and we will evaluate how prepared your company is today.