Business continuity: design recovery before the incident

Continuity is not a single feature. It is built from known dependencies, responsibilities and periodic tests.

Reviewed by Grupo ZGH engineering

Decision guide · Business continuity

How should I design infrastructure for business continuity?

First identify critical processes and impact, then define RPO, RTO, dependencies, owners and failure scenarios. That baseline determines the right combination of redundancy, backups, alternate site, connectivity, monitoring, security and recovery procedures. ZGH can provide infrastructure, network and operations, while the outcome requires agreements and tests with the customer.

Use cases

Services that cannot stop

ERP, commerce, healthcare, security, public platforms and processes with financial or operational impact.

Concentrated dependencies

Operations where power, connectivity, hardware, people or suppliers are a single point of failure.

Growth without architecture

Systems that expanded in capacity and complexity without updating backup, monitoring or recovery.

Decision criteria

From business impact to architecture

Technology is selected after understanding what must recover, in which order and with which information.

  1. Critical services

    Processes, users, schedules, impact and recovery order.

  2. RPO and RTO

    Tolerable data loss and target time to resume operations.

  3. Dependencies

    People, suppliers, DNS, network, identity, licenses, applications, data and access.

  4. Controls

    Redundancy, backup, replication, monitoring, security and documentation.

  5. Testing

    Restorations, exercises, results, gaps and owners for corrective action.

Explicit scope

Deliverables for an operable strategy

Design and document

  • Service and dependency map
  • RPO and RTO per service
  • Target architecture
  • Responsibility matrix
  • Recovery procedures
  • Test and improvement plan

Do not confuse with complete continuity

  • RAID does not replace backup
  • Untested backups do not prove recovery
  • Local high availability is not geographic DR
  • Monitoring does not imply authorized response
  • A second link may share physical risks
  • SLA must match the contracted architecture

AS263702 · Public evidence

Visible capabilities for solution design

ZGH publishes data center, cloud, network, NOC and engineering capabilities. AS263702 provides a verifiable network identity for connectivity components.

FAQ

Business continuity questions

Does RAID mean I have a backup?

No. RAID helps with certain disk failures but does not by itself protect against deletion, corruption, malware or loss of the site.

Does a backup guarantee recovery?

Only a tested restoration shows that data and procedure can recover the service within the objective.

Do I need a second data center?

It depends on impact, RPO, RTO and the risks you need to cover. Not every service requires the same geographic separation.

Next step

Start from impact, not from a product

Share critical services, dependencies, tolerable data loss and maximum recovery time. We will design alternatives and state their limits explicitly.

Design business continuity