Cloud Architecture Guide
Disaster Recovery Patterns
Choosing the right balance between Cost, Recovery Time (RTO), and Recovery Point (RPO).
The DR Ingredients
Data Replication
The continuous or periodic copying of data from the primary site to a secondary region to ensure consistency.
Infrastructure Provisioning
Automated scripts (IaC) that can spin up servers, load balancers, and networking components on demand.
DNS/Traffic Failover
The mechanism (like Route53) that detects failure and reroutes user requests to the healthy secondary site.
Strategic Visual Comparison
How resources are distributed across Primary and Secondary regions.
Option 01
Pilot Light
“Keep the core burning, spark the rest when needed.”
- Low Maintenance Cost
- RTO: Tens of Minutes
- DB is live; App is off
Option 02
Warm Standby
“A scaled-down version ready to take the heat.”
- Medium Cost
- RTO: Minutes
- Functional but Scaled Down
Option 03
Active-Active
“Zero downtime, zero compromise, double the power.”
- High Cost
- RTO: Near Zero
- Traffic split across regions