Backup and disaster recovery: what should your plan cover?

Understand data protection, recovery priorities and evidence from testing.

Backup protects recoverable copies

Define the workloads covered, retention, storage separation, monitoring and restore validation. Check what happens when a job fails.

Recovery restores a business service

Map dependencies such as identities, network access, applications and suppliers. Decide who can activate the plan and in what order systems return.

Set objectives per workload

A recovery point objective describes target tolerable data loss; a recovery time objective describes target restoration time. A single target may not suit every system.

Test and track what you learn

Use sample restores, tabletop exercises and agreed technical recovery tests. Record results, limitations and improvement actions.

Specify the commercial boundaries

Confirm standby capacity, test frequency, activation assistance, restore charges and third-party dependencies in the service schedule.