What Is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster recovery (DR) is a strategic approach to resuming normal business operations after a disruptive event — whether that's a ransomware attack, a server failure, a hurricane, a fire, or any other incident that takes your critical systems offline. A disaster recovery plan defines exactly how your organization will restore its data, applications, and IT infrastructure, how quickly it will happen, and who is responsible for each step of the process.

Two key metrics define any disaster recovery plan: Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). RTO is the maximum acceptable amount of time your systems can be down before the impact becomes unacceptable — for some businesses, that's hours; for others, it's minutes. RPO defines how much data loss is acceptable, measured in time — if your RPO is four hours, your backups need to run at least every four hours so you never lose more than four hours' worth of data. These metrics drive the technology and processes you need.

Disaster recovery is closely related to data backup, but it goes much further. While backup ensures your data is preserved, disaster recovery encompasses the entire process of getting your business operational again — restoring servers, reconnecting networks, verifying applications, and resuming normal workflows. For North Florida businesses, where hurricane season brings annual risk of extended power outages and physical damage, having a tested disaster recovery plan isn't optional — it's a business necessity.