How do you provision and configure cloud native disaster recovery zones?

2 Choose your DR zone locations

The next step is to decide on the locations of your DR zones. These are the cloud regions or zones in which you will provision and configure your backup or replica resources and processes. When selecting your DR zone locations, you should take into account proximity, availability, and compliance. Closer DR zones to the primary zones will reduce latency and increase performance, but also increases the risk of a regional outage. High availability DR zones will decrease the probability of a failure or disruption, but can be expensive and complex. Compliance with regulatory and legal requirements will lower the risk of violating any rules or standards, but can limit your choices of DR zone locations. You should weigh these factors carefully and choose DR zone locations that best match your recovery objectives and budget.

3 Provision your DR zone resources

The third step in setting up a disaster recovery zone is to provision the resources needed. Leveraging cloud native features and tools can help you do this efficiently and effectively. Storage services such as object storage, block storage, file storage, and database services can be used for data backup or replication. Additionally, features like snapshots, versioning, encryption, and lifecycle management can be used to enhance data protection and management. For applications, virtual machines, containers, or serverless functions can be used for backup or replication. Autoscaling, load balancing, and health checks are features that can be used to enhance application availability and performance. Cloud networking services like virtual private networks, gateways, firewalls, or DNS services are useful for connecting DR zones with primary zones and users. Routing, encryption, and traffic shaping are features that can be used to enhance network security and reliability. When provisioning DR zone resources, it is important to consider recovery objectives and budget while ensuring compatibility and consistency with primary zone resources.

4 Configure your DR zone processes

The fourth step is to configure your DR zone processes. These are the cloud operations and workflows that you will use to backup or replicate your data and applications in your DR zones, and to restore them in the event of a disaster. Leverage the cloud native features and tools that can help you configure your DR zone processes automatically and reliably, such as backup and replication methods with different frequencies, failover and failback mechanisms with various triggers, and testing and validation tools. Additionally, consider scheduling, compression, deduplication, load balancing, DNS, routing, metrics, logs, and reports when configuring your DR zone processes. Ultimately, make sure they are aligned with your recovery objectives and budget while being integrated with your primary zone processes.

5 Review and update your DR zone plan

The final step is to review and update your DR zone plan. This is the document that summarizes your DR zone resources and processes, and provides the instructions and guidelines for executing them in the event of a disaster. You should review and update your DR zone plan regularly and whenever there are any changes or updates in your cloud environment or requirements. You should also communicate and share your DR zone plan with your stakeholders and team members, and train them on how to use it.

Your DR zone plan is the key to ensuring that you can provision and configure cloud native DR zones effectively and efficiently.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?