Question 1

What is a disaster recovery plan?

Accepted Answer

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented process for recovering IT infrastructure and systems after a disruptive event. It includes procedures for responding to unplanned incidents like cyber attacks, natural disasters, power outages, or equipment failures, with the goal of minimizing downtime and data loss while restoring normal operations.

Question 2

What is the difference between disaster recovery and business continuity?

Accepted Answer

Disaster recovery focuses specifically on restoring IT systems and data after an incident. Business continuity is broader, encompassing all aspects of keeping the organization running during and after a disaster, including facilities, personnel, communications, and critical business functions. DR is typically a subset of business continuity planning.

Question 3

What is RTO (Recovery Time Objective)?

Accepted Answer

RTO is the maximum acceptable time that a system or application can be offline after a disaster before it significantly impacts business operations. For example, an RTO of 4 hours means the system must be restored within 4 hours of an outage. RTOs drive decisions about backup infrastructure and recovery capabilities.

Question 4

What is RPO (Recovery Point Objective)?

Accepted Answer

RPO is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. It defines how often backups must occur. For example, an RPO of 1 hour means you can lose at most 1 hour of data, requiring at least hourly backups. Critical systems often require RPOs of minutes or even zero (synchronous replication).

Question 5

What should be included in a disaster recovery plan?

Accepted Answer

A comprehensive DR plan should include: executive summary, roles and responsibilities, contact lists, business impact analysis, risk assessment, recovery objectives (RTO/RPO), system inventory, backup procedures, recovery procedures, communication plan, vendor contacts, testing schedule, and plan maintenance procedures.

Question 6

How often should disaster recovery plans be tested?

Accepted Answer

DR plans should be tested at least annually, with more frequent testing for critical systems. Testing types include tabletop exercises (quarterly), partial tests of specific systems (semi-annually), and full simulation tests (annually). Testing validates that procedures work and identifies gaps before an actual disaster.

Question 7

What types of disaster recovery tests exist?

Accepted Answer

Common DR test types include: Tabletop exercises (discussion-based walkthroughs), Checklist tests (verifying documentation completeness), Structured walkthroughs (step-by-step procedure review), Simulation tests (practicing without affecting production), Parallel tests (running recovery systems alongside production), and Full interruption tests (actual failover).

Question 8

How do I determine which systems are critical?

Accepted Answer

Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA) to identify critical systems. Evaluate each system based on: financial impact of downtime, operational dependencies, customer impact, regulatory requirements, and reputational consequences. Rank systems by criticality tier (e.g., Tier 1: Mission-critical, Tier 2: Important, Tier 3: Non-critical).

Question 9

What is a hot site vs. warm site vs. cold site?

Accepted Answer

Hot site: Fully operational duplicate environment with real-time data replication, enabling immediate failover (highest cost, lowest RTO). Warm site: Partially equipped facility that can be operational within hours to days. Cold site: Basic facility with power and connectivity that requires equipment installation (lowest cost, highest RTO).

Question 10

How does cloud infrastructure affect disaster recovery?

Accepted Answer

Cloud infrastructure offers DR advantages including geographic redundancy, rapid scaling, pay-per-use pricing, and managed backup services. Key considerations: multi-region deployments, automated failover capabilities, infrastructure-as-code for rapid rebuilding, and understanding cloud provider SLAs and shared responsibility models.

Question 11

What is disaster recovery for SOC 2 compliance?

Accepted Answer

SOC 2 requires organizations to have documented disaster recovery and business continuity plans. The Availability Trust Service Criteria specifically addresses: maintaining operations during disruptions, system redundancy, backup procedures, and recovery capabilities. Auditors verify documented plans, testing evidence, and actual recovery capabilities.

Question 12

What is disaster recovery for ISO 27001 compliance?

Accepted Answer

ISO 27001 Annex A includes controls for business continuity management. Control A.17 requires: continuity planning, implementing continuity measures, verification and review of plans, and redundancy. Organizations must demonstrate documented procedures, tested plans, and integration with overall business continuity management.

Question 13

How do I calculate the cost of downtime?

Accepted Answer

Calculate downtime cost by considering: lost revenue (sales per hour × hours down), productivity loss (employee cost × hours × percentage affected), recovery costs (overtime, emergency services), reputation damage, SLA penalties, and regulatory fines. This analysis helps justify DR investments and define appropriate RTOs.

Question 14

What are common disaster recovery plan mistakes?

Accepted Answer

Common mistakes include: not testing the plan regularly, outdated contact information, unclear roles and responsibilities, ignoring dependencies between systems, not accounting for personnel availability, inadequate backup verification, focusing only on IT without business processes, and not updating after infrastructure changes.

Question 15

How often should the DR plan be updated?

Accepted Answer

DR plans should be reviewed and updated: after any significant infrastructure change, following DR tests (incorporating lessons learned), when personnel or contact information changes, after actual incidents, and at minimum annually as a formal review. Establish a change management process for plan updates.

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