Recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO)
RTO defines the maximum acceptable downtime after a disruption, while RPO specifies the maximum amount of data loss an organization can tolerate. These metrics directly impact business continuity and financial losses during an outage.
Evaluate suppliers' guaranteed RTO and RPO, looking for SLA-backed commitments. Verify their ability to meet these targets through successful, unannounced test results and customer testimonials. Consider solutions that offer granular recovery options for specific applications or data sets.
Cyber resilience and data immutability
In an era of sophisticated cyberattacks, especially ransomware, traditional backups are often targeted. Immutable and air-gapped storage ensures that backup files cannot be altered or deleted, providing a last line of defense against data corruption or loss.
Assess vendors' security features, including immutable storage, air-gapping capabilities, and integrated cybersecurity. Inquire about their strategies for protecting backup infrastructure from ransomware and other advanced threats. Verify compliance with relevant security standards and certifications.
Orchestrated and automated recovery
Manual recovery processes are slow and prone to human error, especially in complex IT environments. Automated orchestration streamlines the recovery of interdependent applications and systems, significantly reducing downtime and improving efficiency.
Look for solutions that offer automated recovery runbooks and intelligent orchestration capabilities. Evaluate how well the platform handles complex application dependencies and ensures systems come online in the correct sequence. Verify the extent of AI-driven automation for self-healing systems and proactive threat detection.
Support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments
Most organizations operate in hybrid IT environments, combining on-premises infrastructure with multiple cloud platforms. A robust disaster recovery solution must seamlessly protect and recover data across all these diverse environments.
Confirm that the supplier supports your specific mix of legacy systems, virtualized environments, and cloud-native applications (e.g., Kubernetes, SaaS). Evaluate their ability to provide unified data protection and management across different platforms from a single interface. Verify their global data center footprint and interconnection capabilities if you have distributed operations.
Scalability and flexibility
Business needs evolve, and disaster recovery solutions must be able to scale up or down to accommodate changes in data volume, application complexity, and user demand. Flexible pricing models, such as pay-as-you-go, are also crucial for cost efficiency.
Assess the scalability of the vendor's infrastructure and services, ensuring it can grow with your organization's future needs. Inquire about their pricing models and how they accommodate fluctuating resource requirements. Verify their ability to provide tailored solutions that align with your specific budget and operational constraints.
