I'm currently managing a product that's fully hosted on Microsoft Azure. It includes components like Azure SQL Database, App Services, Virtual Networks, a virtual firewall, and several other services. I'm trying to determine the recovery time objective (RTO) for this existing setup. Specifically, should I be estimating the time it would take to fully restore the environment from backups and replicated components in the event of a complete regional outage? I also realize I didn't conduct a business impact analysis when designing this infrastructure initially, which complicates things a bit.
4 Answers
It helps to think about how long you can afford to be down, usually in terms of potential revenue loss. From there, plan to achieve that RTO during a worst-case scenario. If full recovery isn’t viable, you might need to reconsider your approach or accept the risks involved. Remember, RTO isn’t just the recovery time; it’s what you need to meet your business requirements.
If your RTO is super critical, definitely schedule a disaster recovery test and measure the time taken during that. It's the most accurate way to gather insights on recovery speed.
You should definitely base your RTO on a complete failure and consider different RTOs for various components based on their criticality.
Absolutely, I think in worst-case scenarios too, considering a complete regional failure. You should look at the time required to:
- Restore everything from backups
- Redeploy your infrastructure in a disaster recovery region
- Restore application and database data
- Reconfigure any necessary DNS, firewall settings, and endpoints
- Validate services are back online and functional
Also, it's crucial to document your High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HA/DR) setup, identify any gaps, and regularly test it. Azure's tools like Chaos Studio can help simulate these failures, making it easier to validate how resilient your setup is in real-world scenarios.
Totally agree! Also, I'd add a buffer—maybe an extra 10% time for those unexpected hiccups. With cloud resources, there's often variability that's out of our control.
Exactly, and don’t forget to factor in the time needed for detection and escalation.