How to Plan and Test Cloud Disaster Recovery: A Step-by-Step Guide

Disaster recovery (DR) is a concept that is simple in premise: When there is an outage or data breach, IT teams use backups and replication to resume operations as normal. This process becomes overwhelmingly complex, though, when organizations have multiple cloud locations to consider during a crisis.

With complicated infrastructure comes the potential to waste valuable time and money during recovery. There is a demonstrated need for cloud-based DR that is simple to use at every step.

Key Takeaways:

• Disaster recovery (DR) is crucial both on-premises and in the cloud, and the first step toward a comprehensive recovery strategy is to extend DR seamlessly across those locations.
• Risks change with the times and with enterprise growth, so DR must also adapt and improve to constantly ensure business continuity.
• Adopting DRaaS is another step that businesses can take toward scaling their data protection strategy while minimizing costs and internal burdens.

What Is Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery?

While organizations will inevitably take steps to harden their infrastructure security against cyberthreats, there will likely come a time when breaches, natural disasters, or simple accidents cause a potential loss of data. When an unavoidable outage occurs, an established disaster recovery strategy plays a central role in restoring data and getting operations back up and running.

Backup and disaster recovery are both essential parts of enterprise data protection. Regularly copying data to alternate storage locations ensures that backups can go live moments after the primary hardware goes down, due largely to automated DR tools that orchestrate the resumption of service before most human users can perceive a disruption.

These processes traditionally take place in a company’s on-premises datacenters, but the cloud-native world of modern IT necessitates the adoption of cloud-based DR practices. When so much data exists in locations distributed across clouds or at the network edge, recovering from the cloud itself is the only way to restore data with minimal delay.

Disaster recovery in the cloud, while convenient and flexible, requires a few crucial steps of setup before it can safeguard your business continuity to its full potential.

Cloud Disaster Recovery Strategy 

Your DR strategy connects business goals to design choices. It selects patterns, regions, and automation that meet targets without overspending. The following pillars help your disaster recovery plan for cloud services scale with your environment.

Extend Disaster Recovery Across On-Premises and Cloud Datacenters

In the modern hybrid cloud world, many organizations choose to maintain on-premises datacenters for the sake of security and control while also utilizing the public cloud for scalability and flexibility. In this type of distributed environment, the ideal DR solution extends seamlessly across on-premises and cloud locations. Similarly, strong cloud-based DR also extends across multiple clouds in a multicloud environment, even when those clouds originate from different vendors. Disparate clouds and datacenter locations traditionally exist as silos, making them separate entities that are difficult to target as backup or recovery locations under one singular DR methodology.

Nutanix Disaster Recovery eliminates those silos and enables a recovery plan that minimizes downtime and data loss, regardless of where the replication site is located. At the same time, this type of integrated solution makes it easier to meet service-level agreements and reduce costs. The goal of cloud-based disaster recovery is ultimately to be available when it is needed, wherever it is needed. Adopting a DR solution with always-on availability that extends across all on-prem and cloud locations is the foundational step toward protecting mission-critical apps and data.

Continuously Improve Business Continuity

Just like IT security, DR is a continual process that does not end simply by implementing an attractive solution. Businesses will constantly change, evolve, and scale with consumer demand, just as malicious parties will also adapt their tactics with the times. This means that an organization’s business continuity strategy must also undergo constant improvement.

It is up to IT decision-makers to implement policies for the continual improvement of cloud-based disaster recovery strategies. For example, strong data protection policies will regularly refocus priorities on the most crucial data assets, acknowledge emerging disaster risks, and spur operations toward new service level expectations.

With these types of policies in place, IT teams can observe results such as:

• Reduced application downtime
• Centralization of control over disaster recovery operations
• Ongoing compliance with SLAs
• Prioritization of business-critical applications
• Data protection as a built-in feature

When business continuity and disaster recovery come together under a protective umbrella of scalable policies, data protection becomes an inherent part of the infrastructure and all IT processes.

Implement Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service

When DR processes are too complex, or when there is simply a need to free teams from extra burdens or costs, turning to disaster recovery services in the cloud is the simplest solution for complementing or even replacing an existing recovery strategy.

Nutanix DRaaS exemplifies how the as-a-service model can ensure success while liberating organizations from the complexities of managing a full-scale datacenter disaster recovery process in-house. With Nutanix DRaaS, it only takes a few clicks to enable comprehensive protection of applications within minutes.

Outsourcing cloud-based disaster recovery is also a large stride toward reducing an organization’s total cost of ownership in the cloud. With the right service provider, doing so comes with no risk of failure when it comes to achieving SLAs.

Verified Market Research reports that the DRaaS market size was valued at USD $9,718.26 million in 2022 with a projected growth to $41,182.37 million by 2030. As DR in the cloud becomes increasingly necessary, the quality of service provided by third-party vendors improves to match. This leads to greater trust and reliance on these services by companies looking to save time and money without sacrificing security.

Align cost to recovery objectives

Start by tiering applications and mapping each tier to clear RPO and RTO targets. Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the maximum acceptable data loss measured in time. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the target time to restore service for users. Choose recovery patterns that meet targets without paying for idle capacity. Use pilot-light for low-cost scenarios, warm-standby for faster recovery, and active-active for the most demanding services.

Control spend with a few predictable levers. Right-size standby compute and scale only during tests or events. Select storage classes and replication modes that match data criticality. Align testing cadence to tier so you do not over test low-impact services.

Orchestration and automation

Automate repeatable work so recovery is fast, consistent, and auditable. Use infrastructure as code to provision networks, compute, and storage in the recovery region. Codify runbooks into workflows that sequence prechecks, cutover steps, and validations.

Design workflows to be safe and observable. Add gates for approvals, health checks, and rollback. Enrich every step with context such as recent deploys, dependency maps, and ownership. Emit events and metrics so operations can see progress and diagnose failures quickly.

Governance and readiness

Establish clear ownership for every service and platform layer. Define a simple RACI model that names the approver, the executor, and the communicator. Require runbook reviews during release cycles so documentation stays current.

Readiness is a lifecycle, not a single test. Track risks, exceptions, and compensating controls in one backlog. Set measurable objectives such as test pass rate, average recovery time versus RTO, and percentage of applications with current runbooks.

Disaster Recovery Testing 

Testing proves the plan works and keeps teams ready. Use realistic scenarios, measured outcomes, and repeatable evidence collection. Disaster recovery testing should improve confidence, not only pass a checkbox.

Test types

• Tabletop exercises: walkthrough of decisions and runbooks with all stakeholders

• Partial failover: move a subset of services and validate end-to-end behavior

• Full failover: shift production under control and measure outcomes

Cadence and scope

Set a fixed rhythm so testing does not slip. Test tier-1 services quarterly and other tiers semiannually. Add ad-hoc tests after major releases, architecture changes, or provider incidents. Vary scenarios to build real resilience. Alternate region loss, network isolation, provider limits, and data integrity failures. Rotate ownership so every team practices decisions, cutover steps, and rollback.

Pass and fail criteria

Define measurable outcomes before every test. A pass meets RPO and RTO for the tier, with user-visible services operating normally. Data integrity must match pre-cutover baselines and application checks. Security and operations must return to steady state. Observability, access controls, and backups must function in the recovery region. Rollback must be safe and executable if any critical check fails.

Evidence and improvement

Capture evidence as you go, not after the fact. Store timestamps, logs, approvals, screenshots, and validation outputs in a central location. Link artifacts to the specific step and owner. Treat findings as work, not notes. File defects with severity, due dates, and accountable teams. Update runbooks, diagrams, and automation as part of test closure, not later.

Failback and resynchronization

Plan failback with the same rigor as failover. Re-establish replication from recovery to primary, then validate lag and consistency. Confirm identity, keys, routing, and DNS before shifting traffic. Use a controlled window and a clear rollback point. Resync deltas, warm caches, and verify application health and integrations. Monitor error rates and performance for an agreed observation period.

Steps to Create a Cloud Disaster Recovery Plan

1) Map Your Environment and Risk Profile

Start with a clear inventory of services, datasets, and dependencies across on-premises, public cloud, and edge. Document how data flows through networks, identity systems, storage classes, and third-party providers. Note regional constraints, data sovereignty rules, and operational ownership for every component.

Assess credible risks by platform and location. Consider ransomware, operator error, capacity loss, misconfiguration, and provider limitations. Translate these risks into design assumptions and escalation paths so recovery decisions are fast, repeatable, and auditable.

2) Set Tiers and Recovery Objectives

Group applications into tiers based on business impact and regulatory requirements. For each tier, confirmRPO and Recovery Time Objective RTO with stakeholders. Record the recovery order and the minimum viable state needed to resume critical services.

Validate these targets against current capabilities. Measure actual restore times, data consistency, and upstream dependencies. Where gaps exist, capture them as funded work in your roadmap so objectives, budgets, and architecture stay aligned.

3) Select Patterns and a Cloud Platform

Choose recovery patterns that meet objectives without overspending. Backup and restore fits cost-sensitive tiers, while real-time replication supports strict RPO and RTO. Pick pilot-light, warm-standby, or active-active by tier, and define how each pattern affects failover and failback steps.

Standardize on a platform that unifies operations across private and public clouds. Favor consistent identity, networking, and tagging so resources move cleanly between regions and providers. When complexity or staffing slows readiness, evaluate DRaaS to package replication, orchestration, and testing behind policy.

4) Provision the Recovery Architecture

Build the target environment with automation and templates to prevent drift. Define regions, virtual networks, routing, and DNS as code. Establish storage classes with encryption and key management, and enable snapshots, replication, and immutable backups with clear retention rules.

Pre-validate access and security before any test. Confirm service accounts, keys, and roles in the recovery region. Add health checks and readiness probes so orchestration can verify each step, detect failures early, and roll back safely when necessary.

5) Author Runbooks and Assign Ownership

Write sequenced runbooks for failover and failback that a new responder can follow. Include prechecks, service startup order, data validation, traffic cutover, and rollback criteria. Attach communication templates for internal updates, customer notices, and executive briefings.

Assign accountable owners using a simple RACI across application and platform teams. Add approval gates and evidence capture to support audits and post-incident reviews. Keep runbooks versioned and tie updates to release cycles so documentation stays current as architectures change.

6) Rehearse, Measure, and Improve

Test on a fixed cadence to turn plans into muscle memory. Use tabletop exercises for decision practice, partial failovers for low-risk validation, and full failovers to prove end-to-end readiness. Measure results against tiered RPO and RTO, and record any variance with root causes.

Close the loop after every exercise. Log defects, assign owners, and update runbooks, diagrams, and automation. Re-establish replication, rehearse failback, and verify observability and access controls. Treat continuous improvement as part of operations, not a one-time project.

Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery Support at Every Step

When businesses implement cloud services, there is a partnership between the user and the service provider. The ideal provider is a supportive and collaborative partner at every step of the disaster recovery process, from implementation to growth and, of course, when disaster truly does strike.

Companies operating in the Nutanix ecosystem and utilizing hybrid cloud tools like Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) already have complete DR solutions available in the cloud. With DR on NC2, IT leaders can deploy automated protection policies as well as thorough recovery plans that orchestrate the restoration of virtual machines  — all with simplicity at the forefront of the design philosophy.

This simplicity can make all the difference for an enterprise experiencing a data breach or outage. Complicated architecture and complex management methods lead to the loss of precious minutes or even hours during a crisis, but a simple-to-use cloud-based disaster recovery solution can restore operations in just a few clicks.

Learn more about enterprise data protection and other ways to manage risks at the datacenter level.

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