Similar to how editing a draft takes less time than starting a document from scratch, applying disaster recovery plan best practices to complex processes, like IT operations processes, helps save you time, money, and frustration.
In this article, we’ll overview best practices on how to prepare a disaster recovery plan, help save you time and money for complex processes, specifically application disaster recovery plans, and how automated runbooks help streamline the creation, testing and maintenance of these business-critical plans.
Understand the basics of an application disaster recovery plan
But first, what is a disaster recovery plan for an application? An application disaster recovery plan documents the processes and procedures needed to restore the availability and functionality of critical software applications and often the associated data after an unexpected disruptive event, whether a cyberattack, system failure, or natural disaster.
Now that we have defined it, let’s review disaster recovery plan best practices for applications.
Prioritize accurate and complete application data
With application disaster recovery, it’s critical to have accurate and up-to-date data and clear understanding of your application environment and dependencies. Centralizing application data in a repository, like a configuration management database (CMDB), provides:
- Core identification and configuration details
- Technical attributes
- Relationships and dependencies between applications
- Operational and support information
It’s also important to organize applications by criticality tiers which includes recovery time objectives (RTOs) and other key metrics. This helps prioritize recovery efforts during a disaster. Solid data foundations are non-negotiable in any application disaster recovery approach.
Create consistent automated runbooks across all applications
It’s imperative to have consistent and thorough plans that cover all applications - especially Tier 0 (mission-critical) and Tier 1 (business-critical) applications. Inconsistencies between app teams or departments can slow recovery and increase risk during an actual disaster.
A best practice for an effective application disaster recovery plan is to establish standardized, automated runbooks and technical documentation for each application. These runbooks should clearly define roles and responsibilities, communication plans, dependencies between applications, testing and validation methods, etc. By embedding consistent processes and thorough documentation, you improve speed and reliability of your application recoveries, minimizing risk and ensuring a smoother disaster response.
Strengthen recovery planning with oversight
An application disaster recovery plan is only effective if it is reviewed and updated regularly. A best practice is to review and test application disaster recovery plans at a minimum of once per year. However, for Tier 0 or Tier 1 applications, more stringent governance and oversight is recommended - reviewing and updating plans at least semi-annually or quarterly is recommended.
Additionally, incorporating the following methods can help governance and prevent errors:
- Defined roles and responsibilities to avoid confusion and minimize human errors
- Version control on the runbook to ensure the most up-to-date plan is being used
- Regular reviews and audits help with maintenance and ensuring compliance
When considering the roles and responsibilities of the IT disaster recovery team, it’s helpful to assign a central owner or one team to own the application recovery plan lifecycle.
Automate where possible to reduce recovery time and human error
Automation is a critical element in modern business disaster recovery plans to reduce manual steps and human error, and ultimately speed up recovery time. A best practice is to use an AI-powered automated runbook and recovery platform, like Cutover, to integrate multiple tools across the tech recovery stack and orchestrate tasks across them. A centralized platform enables you to execute business disaster recovery plans quickly and reliably, automating key disaster recovery elements including:
- Orchestrating tasks which are critical for the next action,through clear task ownership and streamlined workflows.
- Self serve stakeholder visibility via real-time dashboards
- Automated post-event reporting and audit logs to satisfy regulatory and internal review requirements
- Integration with other systems in the technology stack, such as an ITSM, infrastructure as Code (IaC) tooling and communication platforms to reduce manual repetitive tasks
- Incorporating AI agents to reduce work by providing insights and recommendations to accelerate recoveries.
By centralizing these workflows, businesses can execute their application disaster recovery plans more reliably and recover far faster.
Test and improve the application disaster recovery plan regularly
As mentioned above, regularly reviewing your application disaster recovery plan is essential for maintaining effective governance and resilience. It’s just as important to regularly test the plan at least once per year.
Simulations and real-world testing strengthen your recovery approach
Disaster recovery simulations and testing are critical components of a strong recovery approach. By taking your DR plans and testing them in a near-live setting, it moves your plan from theoretical to practical and verifiable. Simulation tests are a great indication of the effectiveness of a DR plan.
For example, an application disaster recovery plan simulation is testing a failover from one cloud region or availability zone (AZ) to another region or AZ. The multiple tasks ranging from pre-failover and validation through post-failover and cleanup can be organized in sequential ordering including interdependencies between applications.
Validation of the plan
Regular testing helps you identify hidden gaps, weaknesses, or ambiguities in your documented procedures. You can confirm if your RTOs and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) are realistic and achievable, and verify that your backups are recoverable when you need them most. This proactive validation means you're addressing issues before a real disaster impacts your business.
Preparation for the team
Disaster recovery drills are indispensable for turning a group of individuals into a cohesive, effective recovery team. They familiarize your team with their specific roles and responsibilities, sharpening their skills and reinforcing proper procedures. This hands-on experience enhances communication and coordination under pressure, building confidence within the team and ensuring everyone knows exactly what to do and when during a crisis.
Improvement of overall resilience
Ultimately, disaster recovery testing is about minimizing the impact of disruptions on your business. By refining recovery procedures ahead of time, you can significantly reduce downtime and data loss, which in turn cuts down on financial losses and reputational damage. A consistent review and testing also ensures your application disaster recovery plan remains adaptable and effective as your technology and business evolve, fostering a proactive culture of readiness and securing your organization's ability to quickly bounce back from any challenge.
Use Cutover automated runbooks for reliable execution
Cutover’s AI-powered automated runbooks provide a reliable execution platform for your application disaster recovery plan, helping you coordinate and recover critical applications quickly and efficiently. Cutover Recover includes pre-defined runbook templates with prescriptive guidance to help get you started. You can also use Cutover AI to generate recovery runbook plans from structured or unstructured data. Additionally, the Cutover Application Metastore can dynamically create thousands of tailored runbooks with application-specific data.
Learn how Cutover can help you save time, increase efficiency and recover 50% faster - book a demo today and see application disaster recovery best practices in action.