Disaster Recovery with documented RTO and RPO
Having backups is not the same as being able to recover. DR is the plan, the failover, and the tests that guarantee your business gets back online fast after ransomware, a major failure, or any disaster.
— THE SERVICE
The plan that defines how long you can afford to be down — and how to meet that commitment
Many businesses have backups. Few have a plan that answers: how long would it take us to get back online if our main server failed today? Who makes the decisions? Which system do we restore first? Where do we do it? That is Disaster Recovery: not the data copy itself, but the complete plan for how to return to work.
Our DR service starts from two concrete metrics for each critical system in your business: RTO (Recovery Time Objective) — the maximum number of hours you can operate without that system — and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) — the maximum amount of data you are willing to lose. With those numbers defined and approved by your leadership, we build the technical architecture to meet them.
The heart of the service is periodic DR tests. Documenting the plan is not enough: it must be tested. Every quarter we simulate a real failure — we activate the failover environment, restore from backups, measure the actual recovery time, and compare against the objectives. If the documented RTO is 4 hours and the test takes 6, we know before the real disaster — not during it.
We work with on-premises infrastructure, cloud environments (AWS, Azure), and hybrid architectures. Failover can be to a local secondary server, a pre-configured cloud instance, or an alternate site — depending on the cost your business wants to bear versus the risk it wants to mitigate. Our 20+ years managing IT for Colombian businesses allows us to design realistic plans, not theoretical ones.
At the end of the process your business has: an approved DR document with RTO/RPO per system, a technical architecture that is implemented and tested, a step-by-step runbook for the team that executes recovery, and quarterly reports certifying the plan still works. That is what distinguishes an MSP with NIST and ISO 27001 from one that just sells cloud storage space.
— PROCESS
How we implement your disaster recovery plan
- 01
BIA and RTO/RPO definition
We conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA): identify critical systems, quantify the cost of each hour of downtime, and define — together with your leadership — the acceptable RTO and RPO objectives per system. This turns DR into a business decision, not just a technical one.
- 02
Architecture and failover design
With the objectives defined, we design the technical architecture: failover environment (cloud, secondary on-prem, or hybrid), recovery sequence, system dependencies, and required resources. We document the step-by-step recovery runbook.
- 03
Implementation and first DR test
We deploy the architecture, integrate with existing backups, and run the first full DR test: activate failover, measure actual recovery time, validate data integrity, and compare against the target RTO/RPO. The result becomes the initial baseline.
- 04
Periodic DR tests + executive report
Every quarter we repeat the test, rotating the systems tested. We deliver an executive report with measured recovery time, comparison against objectives, findings, and adjustments applied. Your business has auditable evidence that the plan works — today, not just when it was designed.
— FAQ
Frequently asked questions about disaster recovery
What is the difference between backup and disaster recovery?
Backup is the copy of your data. Disaster recovery is the complete plan for how you use that data — and other resources — to get back to work after a disaster. You can have perfect backups and still take 3 days to recover because no one knows in what order to restore systems, where to get the hardware, or how to configure the temporary network. DR solves that.
What are RTO and RPO?
RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is the maximum time your business can go without a system before the impact becomes unacceptable — for example, a maximum of 4 hours without the ERP. RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is the maximum amount of data you can afford to lose — for example, a maximum of 1 hour of transactions. You define both based on business cost; we design the technical architecture to meet them.
How often do you test the DR plan?
At minimum quarterly. Each cycle we activate the failover environment under real conditions, measure the effective recovery time, and verify the integrity of the restored data. The result is documented in a report. If the measured time exceeds the RTO objective, we adjust the architecture before the next cycle — we don't wait for a real disaster.
Does DR work if we are hit by ransomware?
Yes, and it is one of the main scenarios we design the plan for. In a ransomware attack the goal is to replace the compromised infrastructure as quickly as possible, operating from the DR environment while the affected systems are cleaned and replaced. The DR plan also documents which systems can be isolated and in what order, reducing containment time.
Do we need DR if we already have a good backup?
Backup is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Without a DR plan, when the moment to recover arrives — under pressure, with systems down and users stopped — no one knows with certainty what to restore first, how long it will take, whether the alternate environment works, or who makes each decision. DR turns that chaos into a predictable process with measured times and defined responsibilities.
"Strategic allies for 12 years. Ethical, responsible, and very well-prepared technicians."