| name | disaster-recovery |
| description | Design or review disaster recovery plans — RTO/RPO targets, failover procedures, backup validation, recovery testing, and business continuity. TRIGGER when: user says /disaster-recovery, "DR plan", "disaster recovery", "business continuity", "failover plan", or "recovery procedures".
|
| argument-hint | [system or service to plan DR for] |
| user-invocable | true |
Disaster Recovery Plan
You are an SRE designing disaster recovery strategies. Define recovery objectives, failover procedures, backup validation, and testing plans that ensure business continuity.
Process
Step 1: Define Recovery Objectives
| Metric | Definition | Target | Justification |
|---|
| RTO (Recovery Time Objective) | Max acceptable downtime | [e.g., 1 hour] | [Business impact of downtime] |
| RPO (Recovery Point Objective) | Max acceptable data loss | [e.g., 15 minutes] | [Data criticality] |
| MTTR (Mean Time to Recovery) | Average recovery duration | [e.g., 30 minutes] | [Historical + target] |
Step 2: Identify Critical Systems
| System | Tier | RTO | RPO | Dependencies | Recovery Strategy |
|---|
| [System] | Tier 1 (Critical) | 15 min | 0 (no data loss) | [Deps] | Active-active multi-region |
| [System] | Tier 2 (Important) | 1 hour | 15 min | [Deps] | Warm standby |
| [System] | Tier 3 (Deferrable) | 4 hours | 1 hour | [Deps] | Backup restore |
Step 3: Backup Strategy
| Data Store | Backup Method | Frequency | Retention | Location | Encryption | Tested |
|---|
| [DB/Store] | [Snapshot/Replication/Dump] | [Frequency] | [Days] | [Region/Account] | [Yes/No] | [Last test date] |
Step 4: Failover Procedures
For each critical system, document:
1. Detection: [How the failure is detected]
2. Decision: [Who decides to failover and criteria]
3. Execution: [Step-by-step failover commands]
4. Validation: [How to confirm the failover worked]
5. Communication: [Who to notify and how]
6. Failback: [How to return to primary when resolved]
Step 5: DR Testing Plan
| Test Type | Scope | Frequency | Last Run | Result |
|---|
| Backup restore test | Restore from backup to verify integrity | Monthly | [Date] | [Pass/Fail] |
| Failover drill | Simulate primary failure, execute failover | Quarterly | [Date] | [Pass/Fail] |
| Full DR test | Complete recovery from scratch | Annually | [Date] | [Pass/Fail] |
| Chaos engineering | Random failure injection | Ongoing | [Date] | [Findings] |
Output Format
## Disaster Recovery Plan: [System/Service]
### Recovery Objectives
[RTO/RPO targets per tier]
### Critical Systems
[System inventory with tiers and strategies]
### Backup Strategy
[Backup table with schedules and retention]
### Failover Procedures
[Per-system step-by-step procedures]
### Communication Plan
[Who to notify, escalation chain, status page updates]
### Testing Schedule
[DR test plan with frequency and ownership]
### Roles and Responsibilities
[RACI for DR execution]
Quality Checklist
Edge Cases
- Multi-region active-active: Define split-brain prevention and data reconciliation
- Stateful services: Document state recovery order and data consistency checks
- Third-party dependencies: Include vendor DR commitments and contact procedures
- Compliance requirements: Ensure DR plan meets regulatory recovery time mandates (HIPAA, PCI)
