Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
267 lines (218 loc) · 8.08 KB

disaster-recovery.md

File metadata and controls

267 lines (218 loc) · 8.08 KB

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Standards

This document outlines the standards and best practices for ensuring application and system resilience, recovery from disasters, and business continuity at Bayat.

Foundational Concepts

Resilience Terminology

  • Recovery Time Objective (RTO): Maximum acceptable time for service restoration
  • Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Maximum acceptable data loss period
  • Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR): Average time to restore service after failure
  • Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): Average operational time between failures
  • Business Impact Analysis (BIA): Assessment of failure impact on operations

System Classification

  1. Criticality Levels:

    • Tier 0: Mission-critical (no downtime tolerated)
    • Tier 1: Business-critical (minutes of downtime tolerated)
    • Tier 2: Important (hours of downtime tolerated)
    • Tier 3: Non-critical (days of downtime tolerated)

  2. Classification Requirements:

    • Criticality assessment methodology
    • Classification review frequency
    • Documentation requirements for classification decisions
    • Stakeholder approval process

Disaster Recovery Planning

DR Strategy Development

  1. Strategy Selection:

    • Criteria for backup and recovery approach (hot/warm/cold sites)
    • Cloud vs. on-premises recovery strategy
    • Multi-region/multi-zone implementation patterns
    • Cost-benefit analysis framework

  2. Plan Requirements:

    • Required plan components and structure
    • Documentation standards
    • Testing schedule requirements
    • Update and review frequency

Backup Systems

  1. Backup Strategy:

    • Backup frequency based on criticality tier
    • Incremental vs. full backup guidelines
    • Retention policy requirements
    • Storage location and redundancy standards

  2. Backup Implementation:

    • Tool selection criteria
    • Encryption and security requirements
    • Monitoring and verification guidelines
    • Restoration testing frequency

  3. Database Backups:

    • Transactional consistency requirements
    • Point-in-time recovery standards
    • Replication configuration guidelines
    • Database-specific backup patterns

Infrastructure Recovery

  1. Infrastructure as Code:

    • Requirements for automating infrastructure recovery
    • Repository structure and organization
    • Version control standards
    • Testing and validation requirements

  2. Deployment Automation:

    • Standards for recovery automation
    • Pipeline requirements for DR deployment
    • Configuration management guidelines
    • Secrets management for DR environments

Business Continuity

Continuity Planning

  1. Plan Components:

    • Required sections and structure
    • Roles and responsibilities documentation
    • Communication plan requirements
    • Escalation procedures

  2. Operational Procedures:

    • Failover decision criteria
    • Manual intervention procedures
    • Notification requirements
    • Service restoration verification

High Availability Architecture

  1. Redundancy Patterns:

    • N+1 implementation guidelines for different tiers
    • Geographic distribution requirements
    • Load balancing standards
    • Standby system configuration

  2. Resilient Architecture:

    • Circuit breaker implementation patterns
    • Retry and back-off strategies
    • Throttling and rate limiting guidelines
    • Bulkhead pattern implementation

  3. Data Replication:

    • Synchronous vs. asynchronous selection criteria
    • Multi-region data strategy
    • Consistency vs. availability tradeoffs
    • Conflict resolution patterns

Degraded Operation Modes

  • Graceful degradation implementation patterns
  • Feature prioritization framework
  • Caching strategies for offline operation
  • Static fallback content requirements

Testing and Validation

DR Testing

  1. Testing Types:

    • Tabletop exercises requirements and frequency
    • Functional testing standards
    • Full-scale simulation guidelines
    • Chaos engineering practices

  2. Test Methodology:

    • Scenario development guidelines
    • Success criteria definition
    • Documentation requirements
    • Stakeholder involvement

Recovery Validation

  • Recovery time measurement methodology
  • Data integrity verification requirements
  • Performance validation guidelines
  • Compliance verification standards

Incident Management

Incident Response

  1. Response Procedures:

    • Incident classification framework
    • Required response steps
    • Communication templates
    • Resolution documentation standards

  2. War Room Protocols:

    • Team assembly guidelines
    • Communication channels and tools
    • Decision-making framework
    • Status reporting requirements

Post-Incident

  1. Root Cause Analysis:

    • RCA methodology standards
    • Documentation requirements
    • Timeline reconstruction guidelines
    • Contributing factor identification

  2. Continuous Improvement:

    • Lessons learned documentation
    • Action item tracking
    • Process improvement implementation
    • Test plan updates

Monitoring and Alerting

Monitoring Requirements

  1. System Health Metrics:

    • Required health indicators
    • Monitoring frequency standards
    • Dashboard requirements
    • Historical data retention

  2. Early Warning Systems:

    • Leading indicator identification
    • Anomaly detection requirements
    • Predictive monitoring guidelines
    • Proactive maintenance triggers

Alert Management

  • Alert severity classification
  • Notification routing guidelines
  • Escalation path requirements
  • Alert fatigue mitigation strategies

Documentation and Training

Documentation Standards

  1. Plan Documentation:

    • Document structure and format
    • Accessibility requirements
    • Version control guidelines
    • Review and approval process

  2. Run Books:

    • Required operational procedures
    • Step-by-step recovery instructions
    • Troubleshooting guides
    • Contact information maintenance

Training Requirements

  • Staff training frequency
  • Simulation exercise guidelines
  • Knowledge assessment standards
  • Cross-training requirements

Compliance and Governance

Regulatory Compliance

  • Industry-specific DR requirements (financial, healthcare, etc.)
  • Audit documentation standards
  • Compliance reporting guidelines
  • Third-party assessment requirements

Governance Structure

  • DR/BC program oversight
  • Review and approval workflow
  • Accountability definition
  • Executive reporting requirements

Cloud-Specific Considerations

Multi-Cloud Strategy

  • Cloud provider diversification guidelines
  • Service mapping between providers
  • Consistent tooling requirements
  • Cross-cloud monitoring standards

Cloud Service Recovery

  1. Managed Services:

    • Service-specific backup procedures
    • API-driven recovery automation
    • Service-level agreement monitoring
    • Alternative service fallback patterns

  2. Containerized Applications:

    • Stateless application recovery patterns
    • Container orchestration failover
    • Storage persistence strategies
    • Configuration management for recovery

Special Cases

Remote Work Continuity

  • Remote access redundancy requirements
  • Communication tool failover
  • Distributed team coordination
  • Home office backup guidelines

Supply Chain Resilience

  • Vendor dependency mapping
  • Alternative vendor requirements
  • Service provider DR plan review
  • Third-party risk assessment

References