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Advanced Topic 48 of 50 DevOps & Tooling

Disaster Recovery

Plans and tooling to restore service after catastrophe.

How it works

Disaster recovery restores service after a major failure such as a region outage, data corruption or ransomware. Two targets define the plan: the recovery time objective (RTO), how long the service may be down, and the recovery point objective (RPO), how much data may be lost. Strategies range from backup and restore, through pilot light and warm standby, to active-active multi-region, trading cost for speed. Backups follow the 3-2-1 rule of three copies, two media and one offsite, and are immutable and encrypted. Runbooks, replication and failover automation put the plan into practice.

Where it is used

Businesses use it to meet availability commitments and regulations and to survive deletions and attacks.

Common pitfall

Untested backups often fail when needed, dependencies such as DNS and identity services are forgotten and failover steps that exist only in someone's head are lost. Rehearse restores and failovers regularly and keep documentation outside the affected system.

Where it fits in the course

Disaster Recovery is topic 48 of 50 in DevOps & Tooling, rated Advanced. It follows Policy as Code. The next topic is DevSecOps.

Practice and explore

How to study this topic

  1. Read the explanation above and restate the definition in your own words.
  2. Open the interactive lesson and answer its mini quiz.
  3. Read the common pitfall, then write a short example that avoids it.
  4. Check your understanding in the DevOps & Tooling quiz, and revisit the topic if you miss a question.

Frequently asked questions

What is Disaster Recovery?
Plans and tooling to restore service after catastrophe. It belongs to DevOps & Tooling and is an advanced-level topic.
Where do people use Disaster Recovery?
Businesses use it to meet availability commitments and regulations and to survive deletions and attacks.
What is the most common mistake with Disaster Recovery?
Untested backups often fail when needed, dependencies such as DNS and identity services are forgotten and failover steps that exist only in someone's head are lost.
What should I learn before this topic?
Start with Policy as Code, the topic just before it in DevOps & Tooling.
How can I practice it?
Answer the mini quiz in the interactive lesson, then take the DevOps & Tooling quiz.
Is Disaster Recovery hard to learn?
It is an Advanced topic. Expect to read the explanation more than once and to connect it with earlier topics. Working through a small example by hand helps most.
How long does it take to learn Disaster Recovery?
Most learners can read the explanation and finish the interactive lesson in under an hour. Fluency comes from applying the idea, so plan a few short practice sessions with the quiz.
Which topics are related to Disaster Recovery?
Policy as Code, DevSecOps, Platform Engineering are closely connected. The full list is in the related topics section of this page.
What should I study after Disaster Recovery?
Continue with DevSecOps, the next topic in DevOps & Tooling.

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