Disaster Recovery
Recovery plans, objectives and tested readiness for systems
Document technology recovery plans with recovery-time and recovery-point objectives, link them to the critical services they support, and record recovery testing — so the organisation can restore systems within agreed tolerances and evidence it. OnyxOne Disaster Recovery gives IT and resilience teams one place where every recovery plan, its RTO and RPO, its dependencies and its last successful test are current, connected and provable, rather than scattered across runbooks and wikis of unknown vintage.
How it works, visually
An illustrative 5×5 likelihood × impact heatmap — the kind of view risk teams work from. Values are an example.
The problems this module solves
The operational realities that make this hard for compliance and risk teams today.
Recovery plans are out of date the day they're filed
Runbooks are written against an architecture that keeps changing. Systems are migrated, re-platformed and retired, but the recovery documentation isn't updated, so the plan the team would reach for in an outage describes an environment that no longer exists.
RTO and RPO are aspirations, not commitments
Recovery-time and recovery-point objectives are set in a policy but never validated against reality. Nobody knows whether a given system can actually be restored within its RTO or how much data would truly be lost, so the objectives are numbers on a page rather than tested commitments.
Recovery isn't linked to business impact
IT recovers systems in whatever order seems sensible, disconnected from which business services depend on them. Effort goes into restoring a low-impact system while a critical service waits, because the link between technology and business criticality was never mapped.
Testing is infrequent and poorly evidenced
DR tests are rare, disruptive and lightly documented. When they do happen, the results — what recovered, how long it took, what failed — aren't captured in a way that proves the objective was met or drives the gaps to closure.
Nobody can prove recoverability on request
Auditors, boards and regulators increasingly ask for evidence that critical systems can be recovered within tolerance. Assembling proof — current plans, objectives, last test dates and results — from scattered sources is slow, and the gaps only become visible under the deadline.
How OnyxOne addresses it
A single register of recovery plans
Every technology recovery plan lives in one register with its scope, owner, procedure, dependencies and current version. There is one authoritative plan per system, kept current and versioned, rather than competing runbooks of uncertain age spread across wikis and drives.
RTO and RPO set, linked and tested
Each system carries its recovery-time and recovery-point objectives, linked to the criticality of the business services it supports. Tests measure actual recovery time and data loss against those objectives, so RTO and RPO become validated commitments rather than untested aspirations.
Recovery prioritised by business impact
Recovery plans link to the critical business services they underpin, so recovery sequence follows business impact and impact tolerances. Technology is restored in the order the business actually needs, not in whatever order seems convenient in the moment.
Structured recovery testing with recorded results
Schedule and run recovery tests against defined scenarios, capturing actual recovery time, data-loss point, what failed and the remediation. Every test produces durable evidence and a set of actions, so objectives are proven and gaps are driven to closure rather than forgotten.
Recoverability evidence on demand
Because plans, objectives, dependencies and test history live in one connected model, the firm can show — per system and per critical service — that recovery is planned, resourced and tested within tolerance, turning an audit request into a report rather than a project.
What's in the module
Turn on what you need and add more as your programme scales.
Recovery plan register
One authoritative, versioned recovery plan per system, with scope, procedure, owner and dependencies.
RTO & RPO objectives
Set recovery-time and recovery-point objectives per system, linked to the criticality of the services they support.
Service & dependency linkage
Map recovery plans to the critical business services and infrastructure they underpin so recovery follows business impact.
Recovery testing
Schedule, run and record recovery tests against defined scenarios, measuring actual time and data loss.
Objective validation
Compare tested recovery against RTO/RPO to show whether objectives are actually being met.
Recovery sequencing
Order recovery by business criticality and dependency so the right systems come back in the right order.
Runbook & procedure detail
Hold step-by-step recovery procedures, roles and contacts so plans can be executed under pressure.
Findings & remediation
Capture test failures and gaps as tracked actions with owners and target dates.
Configuration & asset linkage
Keep plans aligned to the systems they cover by linking to your asset and configuration sources.
Immutable test history
Every plan version and test result is preserved as durable recoverability evidence.
The views your team works from
Purpose-built dashboards and views, each answering a question a specific role needs to act on.
A representative layout of the KPI tiles and charts these dashboards present. Figures shown are illustrative examples, not real data.
Recovery plan register
Every recovery plan with owner, scope, version and the systems and services it covers, filterable across the estate.
RTO/RPO posture
Objectives by system against last tested results, showing where recovery is proven within tolerance and where it is not.
Test results board
Recovery tests with actual recovery time and data-loss point versus objective, plus findings raised.
Recovery sequence view
Systems ordered by the business impact of the services they support, so recovery priority is clear before an event.
Remediation tracker
Open remediation actions from test shortfalls and failures, by owner and due date, tracked to closure.
What the platform automates
Rules, workflows, alerts and scheduling that run the routine so your team works the exceptions.
Test scheduling & reminders
Recovery tests are scheduled on cadence and owners reminded, so testing happens on time rather than when it is remembered.
Objective-breach flagging
When a test's measured recovery time or data loss exceeds the system's RTO or RPO, the shortfall is flagged and a remediation task raised.
Plan-review scheduling
Recovery plans enter their review cycle automatically and owners are prompted before a review falls due.
Change-triggered plan flags
When a linked asset or dependency changes, the affected recovery plan is flagged for update automatically.
Remediation follow-up
Actions from test failures are reminded before they fall due and escalated when they slip past target.
Where AI helps the analyst
Assistive, decision-support features that speed up the work on the record. Suggestions are always reviewable, and a person stays in control of every decision.
Runbook drafting
Drafts recovery-procedure steps from a system's documented dependencies and prior plans, which the plan owner reviews, tests and owns before use.
Objective-consistency checking
Flags recovery objectives that look inconsistent with the criticality of the services they support, prompting a person to reconcile them.
Test-result summarisation
Summarises recovery-test outcomes into proposed findings and remediation actions, leaving validation and prioritisation to the team.
The enterprise workflow
A defined, end-to-end process with clear ownership at every stage.
Every result, decision and override is captured against the record it belongs to.
Register systems & plans
Document a recovery plan for each in-scope system, with its procedure, owner and dependencies, in one authoritative register.
Set RTO & RPO
Assign recovery-time and recovery-point objectives to each system, aligned to the criticality of the business services it supports.
Map to services
Link recovery plans to the critical business services and infrastructure they underpin so recovery sequence follows business impact.
Test recovery
Run recovery tests against defined scenarios, measuring actual recovery time and data-loss point and recording what failed.
Validate & remediate
Compare results to RTO/RPO, and turn shortfalls and failures into tracked remediation actions with owners and dates.
Evidence recoverability
Report recovery objectives, dependencies and tested results per system and service to leadership, audit and regulators.
What your team gains
One plan per system, kept current
A single versioned register replaces competing runbooks, so the plan the team reaches for in an outage is the right one.
RTO and RPO you can actually meet
Objectives validated by real recovery tests become commitments backed by evidence rather than numbers in a policy.
Recovery in business-impact order
Linking plans to critical services means systems come back in the order the business needs, not the order that seems convenient.
Proof of recoverability on demand
Plans, objectives and test history in one model turn 'prove you can recover' from a scramble into a report.
Gaps driven to closure
Test failures become tracked remediation actions, so shortfalls are fixed rather than rediscovered at the next test.
Confident, sequenced response
Current runbooks, mapped dependencies and known objectives let teams execute recovery calmly instead of improvising under pressure.
Industries it serves
Works with your existing systems
Described as capabilities — OnyxOne connects to the systems your deployment requires, configured per implementation.
- Links technology recovery plans and RTO/RPO to the critical services and impact tolerances held in the business-continuity module
- Ingests system, application and infrastructure inventory from your existing CMDB and asset tools to keep plans aligned to reality
- Connects to incident management and operational risk so real outages inform recovery planning and objectives
- Works alongside your existing monitoring and IT service-management tooling to trigger and track recovery activity
- Routes test tasks, plan-review reminders and remediation actions through your existing email and messaging channels
Security, compliance & reporting
Security & data handling
- Recovery plans, runbooks and test results are encrypted in transit and at rest, with access governed by role-based permissions.
- Sensitive recovery procedure and infrastructure detail can be restricted to named technology and oversight roles.
- Every plan version and recovery-test result is written to an append-only audit trail.
- Recovery roles and contacts are access-controlled and kept current alongside the identity directory.
- Retention of recovery plans and test evidence is configurable to your regulatory and record-keeping obligations.
Compliance support
- Supports operational-resilience expectations for recovery of important business services within tolerance
- Aligns with recognised continuity and IT-resilience practice such as ISO 22301 and ISO 27031
- Provides tested-recovery evidence expected in regulatory examination and audit
- Underpins the technology-recovery layer of a documented operational-resilience programme
- Supplies documented RTO/RPO and test evidence for internal audit and supervisory review
Reports & exports
- Recovery plan register with owners, scope and version
- RTO/RPO objectives by system and by supported service
- Recovery-test schedule, results and objective-attainment reports
- Objective-shortfall and single-point-of-failure reports
- Remediation-action status and overdue-action reports
- Per-service recoverability evidence packs
How to get the most from it
Derive objectives from business impact
Set RTO and RPO from the criticality of the services a system supports, not from IT convenience. Objectives that ignore business impact recover the wrong things first.
Test to the objective, not around it
Measure actual recovery time and data loss against the stated RTO and RPO. A test that doesn't measure against the objective proves nothing about whether you'll meet it.
Keep plans aligned to the estate
Link recovery plans to your asset and configuration sources so they move as the architecture moves. A plan for a system that has since changed is a liability in an outage.
Close every test finding
Turn shortfalls and failures into tracked remediation. Testing that surfaces gaps but doesn't fix them just documents the same problem twice.
Questions, answered
How are RTO and RPO handled?
Each system carries recovery-time and recovery-point objectives linked to the criticality of the services it supports. Recovery tests measure actual recovery time and data-loss point against those objectives, so RTO and RPO become validated commitments rather than untested numbers in a policy.
How does recovery follow business priority?
Recovery plans link to the critical business services they underpin, so recovery sequence follows business impact and impact tolerances. Systems are restored in the order the business needs rather than in an arbitrary technical order.
How is recovery testing recorded?
You schedule and run recovery tests against defined scenarios, capturing actual recovery time, the data-loss point, what failed and the remediation. Every test produces durable evidence and a set of tracked actions, so objectives are proven and gaps are driven to closure.
How does this relate to business continuity?
Disaster recovery covers restoring the underlying technology; business continuity covers keeping critical business services running. The modules link, so technology recovery plans and their RTO/RPO connect to the critical services and impact tolerances they support for one resilience picture.
Can we prove recoverability to a regulator?
Yes. Plans, objectives, dependencies and test history live in one connected model, so per system and per critical service you can show that recovery is planned, resourced and tested within tolerance — producing evidence on request rather than assembling it under a deadline.
Related modules
See Disaster Recovery in your programme
Book a walkthrough and we'll show how this module fits your policy, workflows and obligations — then scope an implementation.