Disaster Recovery: prepare, recover, and validate

Objectives and progression

A six-module technical course with fictional APS and infrastructure management examples. Learn to define recovery objectives, choose strategies, validate backups and dependencies, prepare controlled exercises, and plan return with reconciled data. Includes selected PostgreSQL 18, etcd 3.6, AWS Backup, and Azure Site Recovery examples, primary sources, and an internal assessment of 24 decisions in 60 minutes.

Audience: APS L2/L3, infrastructure, SRE, systems administration teams, and technical managers.

Prerequisites: Storage, application, identity, and high-availability fundamentals; examples state versions and conditions.

300 estimated study minutes

• Separate RTO and RPO and check whether the dependency chain supports both.
• Relate recovery-site readiness to historical recovery and change control.
• Validate the recovery chain and limits of file verification.
• Include identity, keys, services, and configuration in the recovery path.
• Distinguish technical restoration, service validation, and exercise impact control.
• Control authority, state, and protection during recovery and failback.

Modules

1. Objectives and dependencies
2. Strategies and data protection
3. Backups and recoverable points
4. Recovery-site readiness and configuration
5. Exercises and functional validation
6. Activation, reconciliation, and return

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Technical assessments

• High Availability
• Storage
• NAS
• Production Support L3

References and version

DR recovery 2026-09; PostgreSQL 18, etcd 3.6 and selected AWS/Azure behavior

• Plan for disaster recovery · 2026-09-30
• Define recovery time and recovery point objectives · 2026-09-30
• Recovery strategies and data disasters · 2026-09-30
• Test disaster recovery implementation · 2026-09-30
• Manage recovery-site configuration drift · 2026-09-30
• Automated observable and abortable recovery · 2026-09-30
• PostgreSQL18 continuous archiving and PITR · 2026-09-30
• PostgreSQL18 pg_verifybackup and restore-validation limits · 2026-09-30
• AWS Backup Vault Lock modes and limits · 2026-09-30
• AWS Backup restore testing · 2026-09-30
• AWS Backup post-restore validation · 2026-09-30
• AWS Backup encryption and restore access · 2026-09-30
• etcd3.6 disaster recovery and revision handling · 2026-09-30
• Azure Site Recovery test failover isolation · 2026-09-30
• Azure Site Recovery reprotection and failback · 2026-09-30