Operation Technology Group - Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

  1. Purpose & Objectives

The purpose of this Disaster Recovery Plan is to ensure Operation Technology Group can restore critical IT services, infrastructure, and customer operations after a disruptive event.
Key objectives include:

  • Minimize downtime and data loss.
  • Ensure continuity of managed services to all clients.
  • Protect company and client data from corruption, compromise, or destruction.
  • Provide a structured and repeatable recovery process.
  • Maintain compliance with regulatory and contractual obligations.
  1. Scope

This DRP applies to all:

  • Internal IT systems (servers, endpoints, SaaS platforms, communication tools).
  • Client-managed infrastructure supported under SLAs.
  • Cloud and on-premises environments maintained by the MSP.
  • Employees, contractors, and third-party partners.

Disasters covered:

  • Cyberattacks (ransomware, data breaches, DDoS).
  • Hardware failure or data corruption.
  • Network outages or ISP disruptions.
  • Natural disasters (fire, flood, severe weather).
  • Extended power loss.
  • Critical vendor / SaaS outages.
  1. Definitions
  • RPO (Recovery Point Objective): Maximum acceptable data loss (e.g., 4 hours).
  • RTO (Recovery Time Objective): Maximum acceptable downtime (e.g., 2 hours).
  • BCP (Business Continuity Plan): Broad plan for maintaining business functions.
  • DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan): Specific plan for restoring IT systems.
  1. Roles & Responsibilities
Role Responsibilities
Disaster Recovery Lead:  Activates DR plan, coordinates all recovery tasks.
Service Desk Manager:  Handles communications with clients, escalations.
Systems Engineer(s):  Executes technical recovery for servers & cloud systems.
Network Engineer(s):  Restores network connectivity, firewalls, VPN.
Security Team:  Investigates incidents, ensures secure recovery.
Executive Management:  Approves DR activation and external communications.

A 24/7 on-call rotation ensures immediate response.

  1. Disaster Classification Levels

Level 1 – Minor Incident

Localized service disruption; RTO < 1 hour.
Examples: single server reboot, minor network outage.

Level 2 – Major Incident

Significant system outage affecting multiple clients; RTO < 4 hours.
Examples: firewall failure, hypervisor crash.

Level 3 – Critical Disaster

Full environment outage (e.g., ransomware, datacenter loss).
Immediate DR activation required.
RTO < 24 hours (varies by SLA).

  1. Communication Plan

Internal Communication

  • Notify leadership and DR team through escalation channels (SMS, email, Teams/Slack).
  • Start live war-room call for coordinated response.

Client Communication

  • Affected customers notified via ticket + email.
  • Provide initial incident summary and estimated recovery timeline.
  • Status updates every 60 minutes.
  • Final recovery confirmation and post-incident summary delivered within 48 hours.

External Communication

Handled only by management or designated representatives.

  1. Disaster Recovery Procedures

7.1 Initial Response

  1. Detect incident (monitoring alerts, user reports, SOC alerts).
  2. Classify the disaster level.
  3. Activate DRP (DR Lead).
  4. Document all actions in incident ticketing system.

7.2 Containment

  • Disconnect compromised systems from the network.
  • Disable affected user accounts if necessary.
  • Suspend automated backup jobs to prevent backup corruption.
  • Capture forensic data (logs, snapshots).

7.3 Recovery Procedures (General)

  1. Server & Infrastructure Recovery
  1. Identify last known good backup.
  2. Restore VM snapshots or perform full bare-metal restore.
  3. Validate system integrity before bringing online.
  4. Reconnect system to production networks.
  5. Test application responsiveness and dependencies.
  1. Cloud Services Recovery
  • Failover to secondary regions (AWS/Azure/GCP) if configured.
  • Restore from cloud-native snapshots (EBS, Azure VM backups, etc.).
  • Reconfigure DNS, load balancers, and authentication services.
  1. Network Recovery
  1. Replace or reconfigure firewalls, switches, or routers.
  2. Restore configurations from encrypted backups.
  3. Re-establish VPN tunnels and client connectivity.
  4. Validate traffic flow and security policies.
  1. Workstation & Endpoint Recovery
  • Deploy new images via RMM/MDM.
  • Restore profiles from OneDrive/SharePoint/Backup solutions.
  • Re-enroll in EDR/MDR tools.
  1. Data Backup Strategy

Backup Types

  • Daily incremental and weekly full backups.
  • Hourly snapshots for mission-critical systems.
  • Offsite backups stored in encrypted cloud vaults.
  • Immutable/WORM storage for ransomware resilience.

Backup Validations

  • Monthly restore tests.
  • Automated integrity checks.
  • Quarterly DR tabletop exercises.
  1. Failover & Redundancy

System Redundancy Includes:

  • Geo-redundant cloud hosting
  • Multiple ISPs with automatic failover
  • Redundant firewalls, switches, and hypervisors
  • High-availability clusters for critical servers
  • Offline/offsite backup rotation
  1. Security Considerations
  • MFA on all privileged accounts.
  • Zero-trust network segmentation.
  • SOC/SIEM for real-time monitoring.
  • Immutable backups to protect from encryption attacks.
  • Endpoint protection and privileged session management.
  • Mandatory patch management and vulnerability scanning.
  1. Testing & Maintenance

Testing Schedule

Test Type Frequency
Backup Restore Test: Monthly
Failover Simulation: Quarterly
Full DR Exercise: Annually

Plan Maintenance

  • Annual review and update.
  • Update after any major incident.
  • Adjust to reflect infrastructure or client changes.
  1. Post-Incident Review

Within 7 days of recovery:

  • Conduct root-cause analysis.
  • Document lessons learned.
  • Update DRP and BCP accordingly.
  • Provide client-specific reporting where applicable.
  1. Appendices
  • Contact lists (internal + vendors)
  • Escalation paths
  • Critical system inventory
  • Backup retention matrix
  • Network & system diagrams
  • SLA requirements per client