Key takeaways
- Disaster recovery (DR) is how you bring critical systems back after a major outage, such as ransomware, hardware failure or a site incident.
- Start by setting two targets per system: RPO (how much data you can lose) and RTO (how long you can be down).
- In Saudi Arabia, also check data classification and residency rules before choosing where to recover, and test the DR plan regularly.
Ransomware, hardware failures, power or cooling incidents and human error can all take critical systems offline. Disaster recovery (DR) is the plan and infrastructure that brings them back within an agreed time. Cloud services have made DR affordable for organizations that could never justify a second data center.
Step 1: Define RPO and RTO
List your critical systems, such as ERP, email, file servers and line-of-business applications, and agree two targets for each with the business:
- RPO: how much data you can afford to lose, for example 15 minutes or 24 hours.
- RTO: how long the system can be down, for example 1 hour or 2 days.
Tighter targets cost more, so not every system needs the same level.
Step 2: Choose a DR model
- Backup and restore: backups are copied to the cloud and restored when needed. Lowest cost, longest recovery time.
- Pilot light: core systems such as databases are replicated continuously, while other servers are started only during a disaster.
- Warm standby: a smaller copy of the environment is always running and is scaled up during a disaster.
- Active-active: two sites run at the same time. Fastest recovery, highest cost.
Step 3: Consider data residency in Saudi Arabia
Before choosing where to recover, classify your data. National regulations require some data, particularly government and sensitive data, to stay inside the Kingdom, and organizations subject to NCA controls must also meet cloud cybersecurity requirements. Several global and local cloud providers now operate data centers in Saudi Arabia, which makes in-Kingdom DR more practical.
Step 4: Protect against ransomware
A DR copy that ransomware can encrypt is not a DR copy. Use immutable or isolated backups, separate credentials for the DR environment, and multi-factor authentication for its management.
Step 5: Document and test
Write a DR runbook: who declares a disaster, the order systems are recovered, and how users reconnect. Test it at least once a year, and after major changes. A DR plan that has never been tested is an assumption, not a plan.
How Thoughts House can help
We design and implement backup and cloud disaster recovery across Saudi Arabia, using platforms such as Veeam: recovery targets, replication of critical servers, immutable backups, runbooks and regular DR tests.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between backup and disaster recovery?
Backup keeps copies of your data. Disaster recovery is the plan and infrastructure to run your systems again after an outage, within an agreed time. You need backups for DR, but backups alone do not guarantee a fast recovery.
What are RPO and RTO?
RPO (recovery point objective) is the maximum amount of data, measured in time, you can afford to lose. RTO (recovery time objective) is the maximum time a system can be unavailable before it must be running again.
Can we recover to a cloud region outside Saudi Arabia?
It depends on the data. Some data, particularly government and sensitive data, must stay in the Kingdom under national regulations. Classify your data first and check the applicable NCA and SDAIA requirements before choosing a recovery location.