VAPORA Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

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

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

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

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.

Support & Escalation

If You Find an Issue

Document the problem
- What happened?
- When did it happen?
- How did you find it?
Check the runbooks
- Is it covered in procedures?
- Try recommended solution
Escalate if needed
- Ask in #incident-critical
- Page on-call engineer for critical issues
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)

Operations: docs/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/

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

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