Having backups is not having a disaster recovery plan. The four DR patterns and how to pick the right one for each system.
Start with RTO and RPO
Every DR decision flows from two numbers: how long can the system be down (recovery time objective) and how much data can you afford to lose (recovery point objective). Business stakeholders must own these numbers — they determine cost.
The four patterns
Backup and restore is cheapest but slowest — hours to days. Pilot light keeps minimal core components running in a second region. Warm standby runs a scaled-down copy ready to scale up. Multi-site active-active runs fully in two regions — near-zero downtime at the highest cost.
Match the pattern to the system's criticality: active-active for revenue-critical services, backup and restore for internal tools.
Test or it does not exist
A DR plan that has never been executed is a hypothesis. Schedule regular recovery drills, measure actual recovery times against objectives, and fix the gaps you find. The drill is where the real learning happens.
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