Understanding Disaster Recovery

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Disaster recovery involves a set of policies, tools, and procedures to enable the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a disaster. The goal is to minimize downtime and data loss, ensuring that your business can quickly resume normal operations. AWS Training in Pune


Key Concepts in Disaster Recovery
Recovery Time Objective (RTO): The maximum acceptable amount of time that a system can be down after a failure.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO): The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. It defines the point in time to which data must be recovered to resume normal operations.
AWS Disaster Recovery Strategies
AWS provides several disaster recovery strategies, each offering different RTO and RPO capabilities. Choosing the right strategy depends on your business needs and budget.

1. Backup and Restore
Overview: The simplest and most cost-effective DR strategy. Regular backups of data and applications are stored in Amazon S3 or Amazon Glacier.

RTO/RPO: Hours to days, suitable for non-critical applications.

Steps:

Regularly back up data using AWS Backup, AWS Data Lifecycle Manager, or manual scripts.
Store backups in Amazon S3 or Amazon Glacier for cost-effective storage.
In the event of a disaster, restore data from backups to a new environment.
2. Pilot Light
Overview: A small version of your core infrastructure is always running in AWS, ready to scale up in the event of a disaster. AWS Course in Pune


RTO/RPO: Minutes to hours, suitable for critical applications.

Steps:

Maintain a minimal version of your application in AWS (e.g., core database and application servers).
Regularly replicate data from your primary environment to AWS.
In the event of a disaster, scale up the infrastructure to handle production traffic.
3. Warm Standby
Overview: A scaled-down version of a fully functional environment is running in AWS. In the event of a disaster, the environment can be quickly scaled up to full capacity.

RTO/RPO: Minutes, suitable for mission-critical applications.

Steps:

Run a scaled-down version of your production environment in AWS.
Regularly replicate data and keep the standby environment updated.
In the event of a disaster, scale up the environment to handle full production load.
4. Multi-Site
Overview: Fully redundant environments running simultaneously in multiple AWS regions. Traffic can be routed to any environment in the event of a disaster.

RTO/RPO: Near zero, suitable for applications requiring high availability.

Steps:

Deploy identical environments in multiple AWS regions.
Use AWS Route 53 for DNS routing and health checks.
Regularly replicate data between regions.
In the event of a disaster, failover to the healthy region with minimal disruption.
AWS Services for Disaster Recovery
1. AWS Backup
AWS Backup provides a centralized, automated backup solution to protect your AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, RDS databases, and EFS file systems.

2. Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier
Amazon S3 and Glacier offer highly durable and scalable storage solutions for your backups, ensuring data is readily available when needed.

3. AWS Data Lifecycle Manager
AWS Data Lifecycle Manager helps automate the creation, retention, and deletion of EBS snapshots and EFS backups, ensuring your backup data is up-to-date and managed efficiently.

4. AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation enables you to create and manage AWS infrastructure as code, making it easy to replicate environments in the event of a disaster.

5. AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery simplifies and accelerates recovery by continuously replicating your applications, enabling rapid recovery with minimal data loss.

6. AWS Route 53
AWS Route 53 provides DNS routing and health checks, enabling seamless failover to healthy environments during a disaster. AWS Classes in Pune


Best Practices for Disaster Recovery Planning
Define RTO and RPO: Clearly define your recovery time and point objectives based on business requirements.
Choose the Right Strategy: Select a disaster recovery strategy that aligns with your RTO and RPO requirements and budget.
Automate Backups: Use AWS services to automate backup processes and ensure data is consistently protected.
Regular Testing: Regularly test your disaster recovery plan to identify gaps and ensure that it works as expected.
Monitor and Update: Continuously monitor your DR environment and update your plan as your infrastructure and business needs evolve.
Document and Train: Document your DR plan and ensure your team is trained on the procedures to follow during a disaster.