A DR plan is only as good as its systems inventory. Every system that supports a critical business function needs a documented recovery objective — without this, "we'll get it back up as fast as we can" is the only plan, and it is not testable or auditable.

• List every system supporting a critical business function, including its owner and hosting location (on-prem, cloud, SaaS).
• Assign a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) per system — the maximum acceptable data loss, expressed as time.
• Assign a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) per system — the maximum acceptable time to restore the system to operation.
• Note dependencies between systems (e.g., application server depends on database, depends on network/DNS).

• For each critical system, document the specific, numbered steps to fail over to backup infrastructure or a recovery site.
• Step 1 — Confirm the outage is real and scoped; rule out a transient or partial issue before initiating failover.
• Step 2 — Notify the IT Recovery Lead and Crisis Management Team that failover is being initiated for the named system.
• Step 3 — Execute the documented failover procedure for the system (e.g., promote standby database, redirect DNS/traffic to recovery environment, restore from most recent backup).
• Step 4 — Confirm the system is reachable and functioning in the recovery environment before declaring it restored.
• Document the specific tool, script, or console used for each step — generic instructions are not executable under pressure.

• Document the recovery site or infrastructure type per system: hot site, warm site, cold site, or cloud-based failover.
• Record capacity and configuration of the recovery environment, and confirm it can support production load.
• List access requirements (credentials, VPN, physical access) needed to reach and operate the recovery environment.
• Confirm licensing and vendor agreements cover use of the recovery environment during an actual event, not just testing.

• IT Recovery Lead — directs execution of failover procedures and confirms system-by-system recovery status.
• System Owners — execute the specific technical steps for their assigned system and report completion.
• Communication Lead — relays recovery status to the Crisis Management Team and affected stakeholders.
• Escalation contact — a named individual (with backup) for each critical vendor whose system is part of recovery.

• Define the notification chain: who is contacted first, and the maximum time before escalating to the next contact if unreachable.
• Maintain a current on-call/escalation list with primary and backup contacts for IT, vendors, and leadership.
• Set a cadence for status updates during an active DR event (e.g., every 30-60 minutes) and who receives them.

• Verify data integrity — confirm restored data matches the expected recovery point with no corruption.
• Verify application functionality — run defined smoke tests to confirm the system behaves correctly, not just that it is reachable.
• Confirm actual recovery time against the target RTO, and actual data loss against the target RPO.
• Document the event, response timeline, and any deviations from the plan for post-incident review.

• Disaster Recovery Explained — /knowledge-center/business-continuity/business-continuity-disaster-recovery/disaster-recovery-explained
• RPO vs. RTO Explained — /knowledge-center/business-continuity/business-continuity-disaster-recovery/rpo-vs-rto-explained