backup-disaster-recovery

name	backup-disaster-recovery
description	Use when designing backup strategies or disaster recovery plans. Covers the 3-2-1 backup rule, RTO/RPO definitions, cross-region replication, automated backup scripts, restore testing procedures, and business continuity planning.
user-invocable	false
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Bash","Grep"]

Backup & Disaster Recovery

Backup Strategy (3-2-1 Rule)

• 3 copies of data
• 2 different storage media
• 1 offsite/off-cloud copy

Database Backup Automation

#!/bin/bash
# PostgreSQL backup with rotation
TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)
BACKUP_DIR="/backups/postgresql"
RETENTION_DAYS=30

pg_dump -h $DB_HOST -U $DB_USER -F c -Z 9 $DB_NAME > "$BACKUP_DIR/$DB_NAME-$TIMESTAMP.dump"

# Upload to S3
aws s3 cp "$BACKUP_DIR/$DB_NAME-$TIMESTAMP.dump" \
  "s3://backups-bucket/postgresql/$DB_NAME/$TIMESTAMP.dump" \
  --storage-class STANDARD_IA

# Cleanup old local backups
find $BACKUP_DIR -name "*.dump" -mtime +$RETENTION_DAYS -delete

# Verify backup integrity
pg_restore --list "$BACKUP_DIR/$DB_NAME-$TIMESTAMP.dump" > /dev/null 2>&1
echo "Backup verified: $?"

DR Tiers

Tier	RTO	RPO	Strategy	Cost
Backup & Restore	Hours	Hours	Regular backups, restore on demand	$
Pilot Light	Minutes	Minutes	Core infra running, scale on event	$$
Warm Standby	Minutes	Seconds	Scaled-down replica running	$$$
Multi-Active	Zero	Zero	Active-active across regions	$$$$

Best Practices

1. Test restores — Regularly verify backup restoration works
2. Automate everything — No manual backup processes
3. Encrypt backups — At rest and in transit
4. Monitor backup jobs — Alert on failures immediately
5. Document RTO/RPO — Define and test recovery objectives
6. Runbooks — Step-by-step DR procedures accessible during incidents
7. DR drills — Quarterly failover exercises
8. Cross-region copies — At least one backup in a different region