Disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity are about a simple question: when something goes wrong, how quickly and completely can you recover? Answering it deliberately is far cheaper than discovering the answer during an incident.
Two numbers that frame everything: RPO and RTO
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is how much data you can afford to lose, measured in time. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is how quickly you must be back up. These two targets drive your backup frequency, technology and architecture.
If you have never defined your RPO and RTO for critical systems, that is the first and most valuable step.
Building blocks of recovery
- Reliable, tested backups
- A secondary site or cloud target for critical workloads
- Documented recovery procedures
- Regular DR testing so the plan works when needed
Key takeaways
- Define RPO and RTO before choosing technology.
- Backups are only useful if they are tested.
- A plan you never rehearse is a plan you cannot rely on.
DR design is part of our data center solutions, and recovery readiness connects closely to cybersecurity and ongoing operations.