DISASTER RECOVERY / INCIDENT RESPONSE
Disaster recovery: turn a plan into a rehearsed workflow
Recovery decisions, parallel work and evidence that the recovered service works.
Define the recovery target
Agree the acceptable data-loss window and restoration time before an incident. RPO and RTO are inputs to the recovery design and the test plan, rather than numbers to infer after a successful failover.
Write the decision path
Identify who assesses the incident, who approves failover and who communicates status. Include the evidence needed for the decision and the conditions under which recovery should be paused.
Rehearse dependencies
Map database restoration, infrastructure provisioning, application configuration and ingress updates. Some tasks can run in parallel; others require a completed dependency. Record those dependencies in the runbook.
Validate the service
Check application availability and the critical user journeys agreed for the exercise. Observe alerts and telemetry, confirm backup configuration in the recovered environment and retain timings for the next review.