{"id":111913,"date":"2025-01-28T08:10:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T16:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=111913"},"modified":"2025-12-14T15:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T23:47:08","slug":"12-best-practices-for-disaster-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/12-best-practices-for-disaster-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Best Practices for Disaster Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working with enterprise customers on their cyber resilience postures, it’s this: Downtime caused by disasters can be costly, and every organization should have a disaster recovery (DR)<\/a> plan in place.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Today, I\u2019m outlining 12 best practices to consider when developing and reviewing your organization’s DR plan to minimize downtime, risk, and unexpected costs in the face of unexpected events.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

These key considerations will help your IT team when developing and reviewing a disaster recovery plan.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

1. Leave no disaster unidentified<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The first step in building a strong DR plan is to identify all potential threats, not just major disasters. Consider \u201cminor\u201d threats like human error or hardware failures that could disrupt security and operations.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

2. Plan for the worst (and beyond)<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

While it\u2019s important to plan for likely threats like ransomware attacks, don\u2019t neglect worst-case scenarios. Develop a plan that can handle a catastrophic event like a natural disaster wiping out your primary site or a widespread communication outage.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

3. Ransomware: Your uninvited guest<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Ransomware attacks are a major threat. Dedicate a significant portion of your DR plan to addressing ransomware scenarios<\/a>, including recovery procedures and strategies to minimize the impact of such attacks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

4. Beyond the walls: Cloud catastrophe<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Extend your DR plan beyond on-premises<\/a> threats to include potential disruptions associated with cloud services, such as outages or security breaches<\/a>. It may seem counterintuitive that we, a cloud provider, are the ones to call this out, but we\u2019re big proponents of the tenet that the one truth about technology is that it will fail<\/a>. Multi-cloud and hybrid disaster recovery options help reduce the risk of those rare, but highly impactful outages. Cloud provider service level agreements (SLAs) define availability targets (e.g., 99.9% uptime) which can increase your overall data and application availability above on-premises capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

5. Infrastructure independence<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Always anticipate potential infrastructure unavailability during a disaster. Plan alternative methods for accessing critical data and systems, including leveraging hot cloud infrastructure<\/a> as a service (IaaS) solutions as a backup.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

6. Think beyond data recovery<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A robust DR plan goes beyond just recovering data. It should outline procedures for rebuilding your entire IT environment, including applications, configurations, security, and user accounts. There\u2019s a big gap between restoring data and actual recovery<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

7. Plan variations<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Develop different versions of your DR plan based on the severity of the incident and the types of incidents your business is most likely to face. This allows for a more targeted response, depending on the specific nature of\u00a0 the disruption.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

8. Runbooks: Your DR roadmap<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Consider creating predefined \u201crunbooks\u201d that outline specific steps for various disaster scenarios. These detailed documents provide clear instructions\u00a0 for IT staff during a crisis.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

9. Recovery is a sprint, but DR planning is a marathon<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Modern DR strategies prioritize planning for recovery from the beginning. Verify the usability of your backups and recovered data to ensure their effectiveness during a crisis. Test your restoration procedures regularly to avoid the pitfall of unusable backups during a disaster.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

10. Securing resources in advance<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Don\u2019t wait for disaster to strike before securing necessary resources. Budgetary approvals, software licenses, and hardware procurement should all be addressed in advance to avoid delays during a crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

11. Cyber insurance considerations<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If your business has cyber insurance, familiarize yourself with the DR planning requirements outlined in the policy. Understanding the insurance company\u2019s expectations can help you tailor your DR strategy accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

12. Backups are essential, but they\u2019re not the whole plan<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, they often target backups as well. Backups\u2014once a low-priority just-in-case item\u2014are now mission critical. Backups are a critical foundation for your DR plan, but they are not the entire plan.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A closing note on recovery<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Finally, make sure to regularly test and update your DR plan to ensure it remains effective and up to date. By leveraging affordable, secure, cloud-based backup and archive<\/a> as part of your overall disaster recovery strategy, you can better protect your critical data. The result will minimize downtime, risk, and costs in the face of unexpected events.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Downtime after disaster can be costly. Here are twelve best practices to consider when developing and reviewing your disaster recovery plan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":111914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,434,438],"tags":[490],"class_list":["post-111913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-storage","category-featured-1","category-featured-cloud-storage","tag-disaster-recovery-draas","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n12 Best Practices for Disaster Recovery to Protect Your Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/12-best-practices-for-disaster-recovery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"12 Best Practices for Disaster Recovery to Protect Your Business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Downtime after disaster can be costly. 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