The perils of not having disaster recovery - or, why we love a good reserve parachute

One of the most important but often missed steps in having a reliable infrastructure is disaster recovery (DR). Surprisingly, most companies decide either to not implement DR or to implement it halfway. Here, I intend to explore common terms and understandings in disaster recovery; how to leverage the cloud, different types, the plan and important considerations, as well as the economic impact. DR can be implemented at regional or zone/domain level, depending on needs. I advocate and adopt having high availability (HA) at zone/domain level and DR at regional level; the cloud presents itself as a good alternative in terms of cost value for HA and DR - even more so with the plethora of providers that exist nowadays.