Disaster Recovery Systems features

Back to Disaster Recovery Systems products

Backup infrastructure, replication technology, and recovery procedures ensuring business continuity in the event of system failures or disasters.

We ask vendors to mark their product against our feature list. It is not available for all products and in some cases we have derived data from publicly available sources. The list of features follows. Vendors can add a further 10 key features of their own.

Backup Infrastructure

Core systems and facilities dedicated to safeguarding data through routine backup procedures, supporting rapid restoration if data loss occurs.

Automated Backup Scheduling: Ability to schedule and automate data backups at customizable intervals.
Backup Compression: Ability to compress backup data to optimize storage space.
Backup Logging & Auditing: Provides logs and audit trails for backup operations.
Backup Retention Policy Management: Ability to set, configure, and automate data retention periods for backups.
Backup Speed: Maximum achievable speed for creating backup copies.
Backup Verification & Integrity Checking: Automatic validation and integrity checks of created backup files.
Cloud Backup Option: Option to store backups in the cloud for offsite recovery.
Encryption at Rest: Data backups are encrypted during storage to prevent unauthorized access.
Full Backups: Ability to create comprehensive backups of entire systems or databases.
Incremental Backups: Supports only backing up changed or new data since the last backup, reducing resource usage.
Multi-location Backup Support: Ability to create and manage backups across multiple geographic locations.
On-Premise Backup Option: Ability to maintain backup copies at physical site(s) for local recovery.
Supported File Types: Variety of system and file types the backup system can handle.

Business Continuity Planning Integration

Capabilities that integrate disaster recovery operations with overall business continuity strategies.

BCP Template Support: Includes or integrates with standardized business continuity planning templates.
Critical Operations Prioritization: Enables ranking and quick restoration of the most vital business applications.
Cross-Team Alerting: Notifies relevant business units during BCP/DR events.
Dependency Mapping Tools: Visualizes operational and data dependencies to inform BCP planning.
Policy Versioning: Track and manage changes in BCP/DR policies over time.
Pre-Defined Incident Scenarios: Library of scenario templates for rapid response during various disaster types.
RTO/RPO Dashboard: Displays recovery time objective and recovery point objective metrics related to current DR plans.
Third-Party Service Failover: Supports failover processes for critical vendor-supplied services.

Monitoring & Alerts

Comprehensive monitoring, real-time alerts, and automated escalation for DR components and procedures.

24/7 System Health Monitoring: Round-the-clock monitoring of backup, replication, and DR resources.
Alert Resolution Tracking: Track status and resolution of alerts/incidents.
Alert Severity Levels: Categorizes alerts by criticality or urgency.
Automated Escalation Procedures: Automate notification and escalation to response teams when incidents are detected.
Automated Incident Ticketing: Creates support tickets for failures or critical alerts automatically.
Centralized Alert Dashboard: Unified dashboard for managing and responding to all DR-related alerts.
Custom Alert Triggers: Users can define custom alerts based on metrics or incidents.
Notification Channels: Supports multiple notification channels (email, SMS, call, chat).

Recovery Procedures

Documented and automated processes for restoring IT systems and data functionality after a disaster.

Automated Application Dependency Mapping: System maps and restores interdependent applications in a required order.
Automated Recovery Orchestration: Automated procedures for restoring key services/applications with minimal manual intervention.
Comprehensive Documentation: Accessible and up-to-date documentation for all recovery scenarios.
Disaster Recovery Playbooks: Detailed, standardized recovery scripts or manuals for various scenarios.
Granular Restore Capabilities: Ability to restore specific files, applications, databases, or systems as required.
Multi-Platform Recovery Support: Ability to restore systems running on different technology stacks or clouds.
Recovery Speed: Estimated time to recover a critical system or essential data.
Rollback/Point-in-Time Restore: Restoration to a specific time or backup snapshot.
Self-Service Restore Interface: Authorized users can initiate restore processes through a web GUI or portal.
Testing and Simulation Tools: Support for running disaster recovery test drills without impacting production.

Replication Technology

Mechanisms that replicate data or services to remote or local sites for redundancy and rapid failover.

Asynchronous Replication: Replication occurs at intervals, possibly with a slight lag behind production.
Cross-Platform Replication: Ability to replicate data between different operating systems or infrastructure platforms.
Data Consistency Verification: Ensures data integrity and consistency between primary and replica copies.
Failover Automation: Automated switching to replica systems in case of primary system failure.
Multi-Site Replication Support: Capability to replicate information to more than two sites for higher resilience.
Real-Time Data Replication: Data changes are replicated instantly to backup locations.
Replication Bandwidth Control: Can limit or schedule replication data flow to avoid network congestion.
Replication Latency: Time delay between data being written to the primary and appearing at the replica.
Replication Monitoring and Alerts: System monitors health/status of replication, sending alerts if issues are detected.
Selective Replication: Ability to choose specific data sets or applications to replicate.
Synchronous Replication: Updates occur simultaneously at both primary and replica sites.
Versioning Support: Allows roll-back and access to previous versions of replicated data.

Scalability & Performance

The ability of the DR system to grow with changing data sizes, system complexity, and performance expectations.

Concurrent Backup/Restore Jobs: Number of simultaneous backup or restore operations supported.
Horizontal Scaling Support: Can add more resources or nodes as the system grows.
Load Balancing: Spreads backup/restore workload automatically across resources.
Max Supported Data Volume: Maximum volume the DR platform can reliably back up and recover.
Multi-Tenant Support: Supports hosting DR for multiple lines of business or brokerages.
Performance Monitoring: Tools to monitor resource usage and identify bottlenecks.
Resource Auto-provisioning: System can automatically assign storage, compute resources as needs change.

Security & Compliance

Ensuring the DR system meets security standards and regulatory requirements applicable to brokerage and financial markets.

Access Control & User Permissions: Granular control over who can access, modify, or restore backup data.
Audit Trail Logging: Detailed logs to track who accessed or changed DR systems or data.
Compliance Reporting: Automated compliance and audit reports to demonstrate controls.
Data Masking/Anonymization: Sensitive data in backups can be masked during test recovery.
Encryption In-Transit: Backup and replication data is encrypted during transfer.
Immutable Backups: Backups cannot be altered or deleted within defined retention windows.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Enhanced authentication for administrative access to DR components.
Regulatory Compliance Certifications: Support for compliance with SOX, GDPR, FINRA, SEC, or local standards.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Assign access by roles for least-privilege operation.

Testing & Validation

Systems and controls for verifying the effectiveness of disaster recovery procedures through regular drills and assessments.

Automated Gap Analysis: System evaluates outcomes to identify weaknesses or failures after each test.
Automated Test Execution: Automated workflows for running DR simulations.
Compliance Checklists: Ensures tests meet regulatory requirements.
Real-Time Monitoring During Tests: Visibility into processes and results during live drill execution.
Reporting and Analytics: Generate reports of test outcomes, response times, and gaps.
Role-Based Test Access: Limits who can initiate, monitor, or stop DR tests.
Scheduled DR Drills: Ability to plan and execute regular disaster recovery test events.
Test Environment Isolation: DR test environment is segregated to prevent interference with production.
Test Frequency: How often DR tests are conducted.

Usability & Access

Ease of use and accessibility of DR systems for administrators and authorized users.

API Integration: Open APIs for integration with monitoring, orchestration, or ticketing tools.
Accessibility Compliance: Interfaces comply with accessibility standards for users with disabilities.
Contextual Help/Documentation: Built-in help and documentation relevant to current tasks.
Customizable Dashboards: Users can adapt views and widgets to personal or organizational needs.
Mobile Access: Ability to monitor and manage DR systems via mobile devices.
Multi-Language Support: User interfaces and documentation available in multiple languages.
Web-Based Management Interface: Modern, browser-accessible dashboard for system management.

Vendor Support & Service Reliability

Level of support and reliability provided by the DR solution vendor.

24x7 Support Availability: Vendor offers round-the-clock support for critical incidents.
Community and Knowledge Base Access: Active user community and searchable technical knowledge base.
Customer Training Programs: Vendor provides training to ensure effective product use.
Dedicated Technical Account Manager: Option for a named technical advisor from the vendor.
High Availability Architecture: DR product itself is architected for high uptime with redundant components.
Proactive Issue Notification: Vendor notifies customers about disruptions or vulnerabilities proactively.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Agreed-upon guarantees for availability and issue response.
Uptime Guarantee: The percentage of time the service is guaranteed to be operational.

Features in Disaster Recovery Systems

for IT and Infrastructure