A practical scaling configuration setup with a redundancy system is potentially something from the past and should get eliminated. SaaS/IaaS replica(s) is the right option we prefer.
Below is a vital plan template that helps identify priorities, and recovery processes to help your local IT with minimal/no damage.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan. Now it is running on autopilot.
- This IT Catastrophe Recovery Strategy gives high-level guidelines to recover from monstrous disasters in a minimal operational state.
- This IT Catastrophe Recovery Strategy complements or replaces IT DR plans in disasters that are beyond normal IT DR planning
-These kinds of disasters are so extremely unlikely that developing and maintaining actual IT DR plans for them is not feasible.
- IT Catastrophe Recovery is based on defining rudimentary IT capabilities that should be rebuilt, general guidelines on how to do it and what to consider, and what kind of knowledge is needed in each area.
| Order | IT capability | Guidelines |
| 1 | Data Center facilities | The first option to consider is to use another DC as a recovery DC. The second option is to select one Site DC and turn it into a recovery DC. Both of these already have network connectivity. DC or Site DC which also has an Internet connection should be preferred. Remember that it takes longer to transfer backup media into a distant location. |
| 2 | Network | WAN connection, possibly Internet connection and DC LAN already exist if another DC or Site DC is used as recovery DC. If recovery DC is located in some other place then connections are the first thing to start with. After building connectivity FW rules and routing are changed to support DC operations. |
| 3 | Infrastructure services and server platforms | The first option is to consider reusing existing, less critical server platforms to establish the minimum server and storage environment for critical business applications. Consider keeping those servers where they are instead of physically moving them into the recovery DC. Physically moving servers may break them (especially disks).
If existing servers can not be used, new as powerful servers as are readily available are bought. The server platform environment to be restored does not need to be exactly equal to the original operational environment. Set up storage as early as possible so that restoring data from backup media can be started. Core infrastructure services are tested and restored if necessary. |
| 4 | Applications | Applications should be installed from installation media instead of restoring them from backups. The server platform is different from the original one which most likely causes difficulties if applications are restored from backups.
Functional application configurations should be as close to the original configurations as possible. Configurations that affect non-functional characteristics like performance are not as critical. |
| 5 | App Validation Test | Applications are tested before they are opened for use. Information that has been restored is harmonious. Malfunctioning applications could contaminate it causing additional delays. |