Disaster Recovery
In short
Disaster recovery is the plan for how a business becomes operational again after a major outage – a fire, encryption by ransomware, the loss of a data centre. It answers two questions: how long may it take, and how much work may be lost.
The difference from a backup
A backup is a copy. Disaster recovery is the route from that copy back into operation – including the order of steps, who does what, and the awkward question of which hardware it is all supposed to run on.
That is why a complete backup can exist while recovery still takes a week. The copy is the precondition, not the answer.
The two numbers that decide everything
How long may the outage last? That is recovery time. It decides the technology: hours are achievable from a backup, minutes need a second system already running.
How much work may be lost? That is the gap between two backups. Back up nightly at two and worst case you lose a working day – the point is to know whether that is acceptable, not to assume it.
The mistake that costs most
Never having tried it. A restore that has never run is an assumption, and assumptions fail reliably on small things: a missing password, a licence, an order of operations.
One rehearsal a year is enough for most small businesses. It takes half a day and is the only way to turn the plan from a claim into evidence.
How we handle it
We write down the two numbers with the business before choosing any technology – they drive the cost, not the other way round. Then the restore gets rehearsed once.
Backup and recovery: Backup and cloud.
Related terms
A term in your quote that nobody explained?
In a strategy call we translate the offer in front of you – even when it did not come from us.