Conclusion

Customers are responsible for the availability of their applications in the cloud. It is important to define what a disaster is and to have a disaster recovery plan that reflects this definition and the impact that it may have on business outcomes. Create Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) based on impact analysis and risk assessments and then choose the appropriate architecture to mitigate against disasters. Ensure that detection of disasters is possible and timely — it is vital to know when objectives are at risk. Ensure you have a plan and validate the plan with testing. Disaster recovery plans that have not been validated risk not being implemented due to a lack of confidence or failure to meet disaster recovery objectives.