What is Disaster Recovery?
The philosophy of Disaster Recovery (DR) is based on the idea of protecting business continuity in the face of unforeseen events. It involves creating strategies and tools to quickly restore critical ICT systems and data after natural disasters, cyberattacks, or failures. It is not just a matter of reacting, but of preventing, minimizing risks and reducing the economic and operational impact of any interruptions.
Disaster Recovery is based on a fundamental principle: ensuring business continuity and the resilience of the company. It is a backbone of Cybersecurity, aimed at safeguarding the IT and business security of companies. In today’s digital age, where data is a critical asset, organizations must be prepared for unforeseen situations.
If a company fails to respond promptly to crises, without having prepared in time, it can suffer serious economic and reputational consequences, not least lose the trust of its customers.
Definition of Disaster Recovery
The Disaster Recovery plan is a Business Continuity strategy which includes continuous procedures, processes and tests, designed to minimize downtime, which could cause irreversible damage to the company. In simple terms, we are talking about a process that allows you to return your business to normal after a catastrophic event. Constantly updating and creating backups of your data are critical components, but they are not enough on their own to create an effective DR strategy.
The Disaster Recovery plan comes into play in the event of cyber emergencies caused by natural disasters, cyber attacks or hardware failures. Three essential pillars:
- Prevention: it is essential to implement cybersecurity measures in order to minimize vulnerabilities;
- Detection: constant monitoring of ICT systems allows the disaster to be promptly identified in time and DR procedures to be activated;
- Recovery: ICT systems and data must be restored as soon as possible and in a complete way (Data Consistency) to stem the damage caused by the emergency.
Two key concepts for planning the Disaster Recovery Plan are the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). The RTO represents the maximum amount of time a system can be idle without causing significant damage to the business. RPO, on the other hand, indicates the amount of data that the company can afford to lose, calculated in terms of time, from the moment the disaster occurs. Both parameters are crucial for creating an effective plan based on the needs of the business.
Disaster Recovery techniques and technologies
Disaster Recovery strategies are based on a series of techniques and technologies that allow IT systems to be restored quickly and with minimal impact on business operations. Data backup is the foundation of DR. However, backup may not be enough to ensure that systems can recover quickly, especially in the event of complex disasters. This is where more advanced solutions come into play, such as data replication and the adoption of cloud infrastructures.
| Feature | Backup | Replica |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Recover lost or compromised data | Ensuring business continuity |
| Frequency | Scheduled | In or close to real time |
| Storage | Historical (previous versions) | Only the latest version |
| Restore | It requires time for recovery | Instant |
| Focus | Data protection | High availability |
Data replication involves creating real-time copies of data on remote servers or in the cloud. This solution allows systems to be restored with up-to-date versions of information, dramatically reducing data loss and downtime.
Another increasingly popular technology is that of Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), which allows companies to outsource the recovery process by relying on external providers. This allows the company to continue its work without any problems, even when the internal servers are down.
This solution allows you to reduce costs, avoiding the purchase and management of dedicated physical infrastructures; provides a great deal of flexibility, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The technique of virtualizing the environment involves performing backups of data and operations, until the entire corporate computing environment is replicated on virtual machines (VMs). These virtual systems cannot be affected by physical disasters. Their use allows companies to get back up and running quickly.
The failover technique ensures the continuous availability of the company’s ICT systems. When the primary server stops working, operations are automatically transferred to a secondary system. Once the problem is resolved, the reverse process, called failback, is used to return operations to the main system.
These technologies, when properly integrated, offer a robust and resilient architecture that protects data and ensures systems can recover quickly in any disaster scenario.
Disaster Recovery Plan: what it is and how to create it
To ensure that the recovery process is effective and fast, every business should have a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), a detailed document that outlines the procedures to follow in the event of a disaster. Creating a DRP requires careful planning and in-depth knowledge of critical operations and the network, technology, and overall enterprise ICT systems. The plan also defines the responsibilities, response times and economic resources required.
The first step to follow to define a well-structured and effective DRP is the risk assessment, which consists of analyzing in detail all potential threats, such as natural disasters, cyber attacks and technical failures, estimating the impact they can have on ICT systems. Next, you need to classify the data according to its importance and criticality to determine recovery priorities.
Another key element is the definition of RTO and RPO objectives, which we have already talked about, which, together with the evaluation of the available technologies, will guide the choice of the most suitable Disaster Recovery techniques and actions for the specific needs of the company.
A well-structured DR plan must also provide for a clear division of tasks and responsibilities of stakeholders. In fact, every team member must know exactly what to do in case of an emergency. Precisely for this reason, it is necessary that Disaster Recovery procedures are tested on a regular basis through simulations, in order to identify any critical issues in the plan and modify it accordingly. In addition, constantly updating the plan allows you to take into account the evolution of threats, thus ensuring robust and effective recovery strategies.
Having a Disaster Recovery plan is like having business insurance, which guarantees resilience and business continuity in an increasingly digital and vulnerable to threat environment.
Technologies evolve every day and pose new challenges to companies. It is important for companies to invest in both Cybersecurity and Business Continuity (add link to the article “Business Continuity: how to draw up an effective plan”). Mitigate cyber-attack issues in recovery strategies to minimize damage in the event of sudden outages and catastrophic events. Relying on professionals in the sector allows companies to create tailor-made Disaster Recovery plans, which respond ad hoc to the specific needs of the company, for rapid and effective problem resolution.
