Vapora/docs/disaster-recovery/README.md

# VAPORA Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

Complete disaster recovery and business continuity documentation for VAPORA production systems.

---

## Quick Navigation

**I need to...**

- **Prepare for disaster**: See [Backup Strategy](./backup-strategy.md)
- **Recover from disaster**: See [Disaster Recovery Runbook](./disaster-recovery-runbook.md)
- **Recover database**: See [Database Recovery Procedures](./database-recovery-procedures.md)
- **Understand business continuity**: See [Business Continuity Plan](./business-continuity-plan.md)
- **Check current backup status**: See [Backup Strategy](./backup-strategy.md)

---

## Documentation Overview

### 1. Backup Strategy

**File**: [`backup-strategy.md`](./backup-strategy.md)

**Purpose**: Comprehensive backup strategy and implementation procedures

**Content**:
- Backup architecture and coverage
- Database backup procedures (SurrealDB)
- Configuration backups (ConfigMaps, Secrets)
- Infrastructure-as-code backups
- Application state backups
- Container image backups
- Backup monitoring and alerts
- Backup testing and validation
- Backup security and access control

**Key Sections**:
- RPO: 1 hour (maximum 1 hour data loss)
- RTO: 4 hours (restore within 4 hours)
- Daily backups: Database, configs, IaC
- Monthly backups: Archive to cold storage (7-year retention)
- Monthly restore tests for verification

**Usage**: Reference for backup planning and monitoring

---

### 2. Disaster Recovery Runbook

**File**: [`disaster-recovery-runbook.md`](./disaster-recovery-runbook.md)

**Purpose**: Step-by-step procedures for disaster recovery

**Content**:
- Disaster severity levels (Critical → Informational)
- Initial disaster assessment (first 5 minutes)
- Scenario-specific recovery procedures
- Post-disaster procedures
- Disaster recovery drills
- Recovery readiness checklist
- RTO/RPA targets by scenario

**Scenarios Covered**:
1. **Complete cluster failure** (RTO: 2-4 hours)
2. **Database corruption/loss** (RTO: 1 hour)
3. **Configuration corruption** (RTO: 15 minutes)
4. **Data center/region outage** (RTO: 2 hours)

**Usage**: Follow when disaster declared

---

### 3. Database Recovery Procedures

**File**: [`database-recovery-procedures.md`](./database-recovery-procedures.md)

**Purpose**: Detailed database recovery for various failure scenarios

**Content**:
- SurrealDB architecture
- 8 specific failure scenarios
- Pod restart procedures (2-3 min)
- Database corruption recovery (15-30 min)
- Storage failure recovery (20-30 min)
- Complete data loss recovery (30-60 min)
- Health checks and verification
- Troubleshooting procedures

**Scenarios Covered**:
1. Pod restart (most common, 2-3 min)
2. Pod CrashLoop (5-10 min)
3. Corrupted database (15-30 min)
4. Storage failure (20-30 min)
5. Complete data loss (30-60 min)
6. Backup verification failed (fallback)
7. Unexpected database growth (cleanup)
8. Replication lag (if applicable)

**Usage**: Reference for database-specific issues

---

### 4. Business Continuity Plan

**File**: [`business-continuity-plan.md`](./business-continuity-plan.md)

**Purpose**: Strategic business continuity planning and response

**Content**:
- Service criticality tiers
- Recovery priorities
- Availability and performance targets
- Incident response workflow
- Communication plans and templates
- Stakeholder management
- Resource requirements
- Escalation paths
- Testing procedures
- Contact information

**Key Targets**:
- Monthly uptime: 99.9% (target), 99.95% (current)
- RTO: 4 hours (critical services: 30 min)
- RPA: 1 hour (maximum data loss)

**Usage**: Reference for business planning and stakeholder communication

---

## Key Metrics & Targets

### Recovery Objectives

```
RPO (Recovery Point Objective):
  1 hour - Maximum acceptable data loss

RTO (Recovery Time Objective):
  - Critical services: 30 minutes
  - Full service: 4 hours

Availability Target:
  - Monthly: 99.9% (43 minutes max downtime)
  - Weekly: 99.9% (6 minutes max downtime)
  - Daily: 99.8% (17 seconds max downtime)

Current Performance:
  - Last quarter: 99.95% uptime
  - Exceeds target by 0.05%
```

### By Scenario

| Scenario | RTO | RPA |
|----------|-----|-----|
| Pod restart | 2-3 min | 0 min |
| Pod crash | 3-5 min | 0 min |
| Database corruption | 15-30 min | 0 min |
| Storage failure | 20-30 min | 0 min |
| Complete data loss | 30-60 min | 1 hour |
| Region outage | 2-4 hours | 15 min |
| Complete cluster loss | 4 hours | 1 hour |

---

## Backup Schedule at a Glance

```
HOURLY:
├─ Database export to S3
├─ Compression & encryption
└─ Retention: 24 hours

DAILY:
├─ ConfigMaps & Secrets backup
├─ Deployment manifests backup
├─ IaC provisioning code backup
└─ Retention: 30 days

WEEKLY:
├─ Application logs export
└─ Retention: Rolling window

MONTHLY:
├─ Archive to cold storage (Glacier)
├─ Restore test (first Sunday)
├─ Quarterly audit report
└─ Retention: 7 years

QUARTERLY:
├─ Full DR drill
├─ Failover test
├─ Recovery procedure validation
└─ Stakeholder review
```

---

## Disaster Severity Levels

### Level 1: Critical 🔴

**Definition**: Complete service loss, all users affected

**Examples**:
- Entire cluster down
- Database completely inaccessible
- All backups unavailable
- Region-wide infrastructure failure

**Response**:
- RTO: 30 minutes (critical services)
- Full team activation
- Executive involvement
- Updates every 2 minutes

**Procedure**: [See Disaster Recovery Runbook § Scenario 1](./disaster-recovery-runbook.md)

---

### Level 2: Major 🟠

**Definition**: Partial service loss, significant users affected

**Examples**:
- Single region down
- Database corrupted but backups available
- Cluster partially unavailable
- 50%+ error rate

**Response**:
- RTO: 1-2 hours
- Incident team activated
- Updates every 5 minutes

**Procedure**: [See Disaster Recovery Runbook § Scenario 2-3](./disaster-recovery-runbook.md)

---

### Level 3: Minor 🟡

**Definition**: Degraded service, limited user impact

**Examples**:
- Single pod failed
- Performance degradation
- Non-critical service down
- <10% error rate

**Response**:
- RTO: 15 minutes
- On-call engineer handles
- Updates as needed

**Procedure**: [See Incident Response Runbook](../operations/incident-response-runbook.md)

---

## Pre-Disaster Preparation

### Before Any Disaster Happens

**Monthly Checklist** (first of each month):
- [ ] Verify hourly backups running
- [ ] Check backup file sizes normal
- [ ] Test restore procedure
- [ ] Update contact list
- [ ] Review recent logs for issues

**Quarterly Checklist** (every 3 months):
- [ ] Full disaster recovery drill
- [ ] Failover to alternate infrastructure
- [ ] Complete restore test
- [ ] Update runbooks based on learnings
- [ ] Stakeholder review and sign-off

**Annually** (January):
- [ ] Full comprehensive BCP review
- [ ] Complete system assessment
- [ ] Update recovery objectives if needed
- [ ] Significant process improvements

---

## During a Disaster

### First 5 Minutes

```
1. DECLARE DISASTER
   - Assess severity (Level 1-4)
   - Determine scope

2. ACTIVATE TEAM
   - Alert appropriate personnel
   - Assign Incident Commander
   - Open #incident channel

3. ASSESS DAMAGE
   - What systems are affected?
   - Can any users be served?
   - Are backups accessible?

4. DECIDE RECOVERY PATH
   - Quick fix possible?
   - Need full recovery?
   - Failover required?
```

### First 30 Minutes

```
5. BEGIN RECOVERY
   - Start restore procedures
   - Deploy backup infrastructure if needed
   - Monitor progress

6. COMMUNICATE STATUS
   - Internal team: Every 2 min
   - Customers: Every 5 min
   - Executives: Every 15 min

7. VERIFY PROGRESS
   - Are we on track for RTO?
   - Any unexpected issues?
   - Escalate if needed
```

### First 2 Hours

```
8. CONTINUE RECOVERY
   - Deploy services
   - Verify functionality
   - Monitor for issues

9. VALIDATE RECOVERY
   - All systems operational?
   - Data integrity verified?
   - Performance acceptable?

10. STABILIZE
    - Monitor closely for 30 min
    - Watch for anomalies
    - Begin root cause analysis
```

---

## After Recovery

### Immediate (Within 1 hour)

```
✓ Service fully recovered
✓ All systems operational
✓ Data integrity verified
✓ Performance normal

→ Begin root cause analysis
→ Document what happened
→ Identify improvements
```

### Follow-up (Within 24 hours)

```
→ Complete root cause analysis
→ Document lessons learned
→ Brief stakeholders
→ Schedule improvements

Post-Incident Report:
- Timeline of events
- Root cause
- Contributing factors
- Preventive measures
```

### Implementation (Within 2 weeks)

```
→ Implement identified improvements
→ Test improvements
→ Update procedures/runbooks
→ Train team on changes
→ Archive incident documentation
```

---

## Recovery Readiness Checklist

Use this to verify you're ready for disaster:

### Infrastructure
- [ ] Primary region configured and tested
- [ ] Backup region prepared
- [ ] Load balancing configured
- [ ] DNS failover configured

### Data
- [ ] Hourly database backups
- [ ] Backups encrypted and validated
- [ ] Multiple backup locations
- [ ] Monthly restore tests pass

### Configuration
- [ ] ConfigMaps backed up daily
- [ ] Secrets encrypted and backed up
- [ ] Infrastructure-as-code in Git
- [ ] Deployment manifests versioned

### Documentation
- [ ] All procedures documented
- [ ] Runbooks current and tested
- [ ] Team trained on procedures
- [ ] Contacts updated and verified

### Testing
- [ ] Monthly restore test: ✓ Pass
- [ ] Quarterly DR drill: ✓ Pass
- [ ] Recovery times meet targets: ✓

### Monitoring
- [ ] Backup health alerts: ✓ Active
- [ ] Backup validation: ✓ Running
- [ ] Performance baseline: ✓ Recorded

---

## Common Questions

### Q: How often are backups taken

**A**: Hourly for database (1-hour RPO), daily for configs/IaC. Monthly restore tests verify backups work.

### Q: How long does recovery take

**A**: Depends on scenario. Pod restart: 2-3 min. Database recovery: 15-60 min. Full cluster: 2-4 hours.

### Q: How much data can we lose

**A**: Maximum 1 hour (RPO = 1 hour). Worst case: lose transactions from last hour.

### Q: Are backups encrypted

**A**: Yes. All backups use AES-256 encryption at rest. Stored in S3 with separate access keys.

### Q: How do we know backups work

**A**: Monthly restore tests. We download a backup, restore to test database, and verify data integrity.

### Q: What if the backup location fails

**A**: We have secondary backups in different region. Plus monthly archive copies to cold storage.

### Q: Who runs the disaster recovery

**A**: Incident Commander (assigned during incident) directs response. Team follows procedures in runbooks.

### Q: When is the next DR drill

**A**: Quarterly on last Friday of each quarter at 02:00 UTC. See [Business Continuity Plan § Test Schedule](./business-continuity-plan.md).

---

## Support & Escalation

### If You Find an Issue

1. **Document the problem**
   - What happened?
   - When did it happen?
   - How did you find it?

2. **Check the runbooks**
   - Is it covered in procedures?
   - Try recommended solution

3. **Escalate if needed**
   - Ask in #incident-critical
   - Page on-call engineer for critical issues

4. **Update documentation**
   - If procedure unclear, suggest improvement
   - Submit PR to update runbooks

---

## Files Organization

```
docs/disaster-recovery/
├── README.md                          ← You are here
├── backup-strategy.md                 (Backup implementation)
├── disaster-recovery-runbook.md       (Recovery procedures)
├── database-recovery-procedures.md    (Database-specific)
└── business-continuity-plan.md        (Strategic planning)
```

---

## Related Documentation

**Operations**: [`docs/operations/README.md`](../operations/README.md)
- Deployment procedures
- Incident response
- On-call procedures
- Monitoring operations

**Provisioning**: `provisioning/`
- Configuration management
- Deployment automation
- Environment setup

**CI/CD**:
- GitHub Actions: `.github/workflows/`
- Woodpecker: `.woodpecker/`

---

## Key Contacts

**Disaster Recovery Lead**: [Name] [Phone] [@slack]
**Database Team Lead**: [Name] [Phone] [@slack]
**Infrastructure Lead**: [Name] [Phone] [@slack]
**CTO (Executive Escalation)**: [Name] [Phone] [@slack]

**24/7 On-Call**: [Name] [Phone] (Rotating weekly)

---

## Review & Approval

| Role | Name | Signature | Date |
|------|------|-----------|------|
| CTO | [Name] | _____ | ____ |
| Ops Manager | [Name] | _____ | ____ |
| Database Lead | [Name] | _____ | ____ |
| Compliance/Security | [Name] | _____ | ____ |

**Next Review**: [Date + 3 months]

---

## Key Takeaways

✅ **Comprehensive Backup Strategy**
- Hourly database backups
- Daily config backups
- Monthly archive retention
- Monthly restore tests

✅ **Clear Recovery Procedures**
- Scenario-specific runbooks
- Step-by-step commands
- Estimated recovery times
- Verification procedures

✅ **Business Continuity Planning**
- Defined severity levels
- Clear escalation paths
- Communication templates
- Stakeholder procedures

✅ **Regular Testing**
- Monthly backup tests
- Quarterly full DR drills
- Annual comprehensive review

✅ **Team Readiness**
- Defined roles and responsibilities
- 24/7 on-call rotations
- Trained procedures
- Updated contacts

---

**Generated**: 2026-01-12
**Status**: Production-Ready
**Last Review**: 2026-01-12
**Next Review**: 2026-04-12