Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
A disaster recovery plan that's never been tested is an untested hypothesis. We design DR architectures based on real recovery requirements, implement them in cloud, and test them before you need them.
Schedule a Free ConsultationMost organizations have some version of a disaster recovery plan. Many have tested backup restores. Very few have validated their actual recovery time against their stated RTO, tested cross-system recovery with real data volumes, or verified that the people who need to execute the plan actually know how to.
For Maldives island operations, DR planning has considerations that mainland organizations don't face: limited on-site IT resources, constrained and sometimes unreliable internet connectivity, physical distance from any technical support, and seasonal factors that affect staffing. A recovery plan that assumes you can have an engineer on-site within two hours doesn't work when your property is 40 minutes by seaplane from Malé.
Recovery objectives: what they actually mean
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
The maximum time the business can tolerate a system being unavailable. RTO drives architecture choices — a 4-hour RTO for your property management system has very different cost and complexity implications than a 15-minute RTO. Most organizations set RTOs without a clear view of the architectural requirements and cost to actually achieve them. We work backward from stated business requirements to determine what architecture is actually needed.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
The maximum amount of data the business can afford to lose, measured in time. An RPO of 1 hour means you can lose at most 1 hour of transactions. RPO drives backup frequency and replication architecture. For payment systems, RPO is often near-zero (replication to a second system). For less critical data, daily backups may be sufficient. RPO and RTO together define what tier of DR architecture is required.
DR architecture tiers
Backup and restore
The simplest tier: regular backups to a separate region or storage account, with documented and tested restore procedures. Typical RTO: 4-24 hours. Typical RPO: last backup (1 hour to 24 hours depending on backup frequency). Appropriate for non-critical systems, archival data, and systems where recovery time is not operationally sensitive. Low cost.
Pilot light
A minimal version of the production environment runs in a secondary region — core infrastructure and data replication active, but application servers not running until needed. In a disaster, the environment is scaled up from the running pilot. Typical RTO: 1-4 hours. Typical RPO: minutes to hours depending on replication lag. More cost-effective than keeping a full secondary environment running continuously, while faster to recover than backup-and-restore.
Warm standby
A scaled-down but fully functional version of production runs continuously in a secondary region. Data is replicated in near-real-time. Recovery involves scaling up the secondary and redirecting traffic. Typical RTO: 15 minutes to 1 hour. Typical RPO: seconds to minutes. For Maldives island operations, this tier makes sense for property management and guest-facing systems where extended downtime directly affects revenue and guest experience.
Multi-site active-active
Traffic is served from multiple regions simultaneously, with automatic failover. RTO approaches zero — there's no "recovery" because the other region is already serving traffic. RPO is effectively zero for correctly implemented active-active architectures. The most complex and expensive tier. Appropriate for systems where any downtime is unacceptable. Requires application-level consideration of how to handle writes during split-brain scenarios.
How a DR engagement works
Business impact analysis
Identify critical business processes and the systems that support them. For each: determine the financial, operational, and reputational impact of downtime at 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, and 72 hours. This analysis produces defensible RTO and RPO targets grounded in actual business impact, not guesswork.
Current state assessment
Document existing backup configurations, replication architecture, and recovery procedures. Test a sample restore to establish the actual current RTO for key systems — not the stated RTO, but what recovery actually takes. This gap is often significant.
DR architecture design
Design target DR architecture for each system tier, selecting the appropriate DR strategy based on RTO/RPO requirements and cost tolerance. For island-based operations: architecture that accounts for connectivity constraints and minimizes the need for on-site technical intervention during recovery.
Implementation and runbook development
Implement the DR architecture in cloud and document recovery procedures in runbooks detailed enough to be executed by operations staff without specialist knowledge. Runbooks include decision trees, step-by-step commands, escalation paths, and contact lists.
DR testing and validation
Test the recovery plan under realistic conditions. Tabletop exercises for the response team. Technical DR drills that validate RTO and RPO targets against actual data volumes and infrastructure complexity. Document test results and remediate gaps found. ISO 22301 requires documented, tested, and regularly reviewed BCP/DR plans.
What you receive
Business impact analysis
Documented impact analysis for critical systems with defensible RTO and RPO targets based on quantified business consequences of downtime.
DR architecture design
Target DR architecture per system tier with cost and complexity trade-offs documented. Cloud infrastructure designed and configured to achieve stated recovery objectives.
DR runbooks
Step-by-step recovery procedures for each system, written for operations staff — not just architects. Includes decision trees, checklists, commands, and rollback steps.
Business continuity plan
BCP document covering crisis response procedures, communication plans, roles and responsibilities, manual workarounds for critical processes, and escalation paths. Aligned to ISO 22301 structure.
DR test report
Documented results of tabletop exercises and technical DR drills, including actual RTO/RPO achieved vs. targets, gaps identified, and remediation actions.
Backup and monitoring configuration
Configured backup schedules, retention policies, cross-region replication, and alerting for backup failures. Ongoing monitoring that confirms backups are completing successfully.
Who this is for
- → Island resorts and hospitality groups where a system outage during peak season has direct, quantifiable revenue impact
- → Financial institutions and banks where payment system availability is regulatory and operational non-negotiable
- → Organizations pursuing ISO 27001 or ISO 22301 certification that need documented, tested BCP/DR plans
- → Businesses that rely on a single data center or region with no redundancy and are aware of the risk this represents
- → Organizations that have a DR plan on paper but have never actually tested whether it works
- → Multi-island operations where remote location means slow on-site response and recovery must work with minimal local technical intervention
Know your actual recovery time before you need it
Start with a free consultation. We'll discuss your critical systems, your current backup posture, and what achieving your recovery objectives would actually require.
Schedule Free Consultation