Backup and recovery strategies (for example, pilot light, warm standby)

What is the ‘pilot light’ approach in disaster recovery, and in what scenarios would you recommend its use?

The ‘pilot light’ approach keeps a minimal version of an environment running in the cloud – typically, the critical core elements like data and some application infrastructure. It is ideal for use in scenarios where companies want to have a recovery system with a faster RTO (Recovery Time Objective) than traditional backup but do not want to incur the costs of running a full production environment.

Can you explain the ‘warm standby’ disaster recovery strategy and how it differs from the ‘pilot light’ approach?

The ‘warm standby’ strategy involves running a scaled-down but fully functional version of a production environment at a secondary site (often in the cloud). It provides a quicker Recovery Time Objective (RTO) compared to the ‘pilot light’ approach since the standby environment can take over much quicker in the event of a disaster. It differs from the ‘pilot light’ approach, which only has core elements running rather than a full, functioning environment.

How do AWS services like RDS and EBS contribute to efficient backup and recovery strategies?

AWS RDS offers automated backups, database snapshots, and Read Replicas to ensure data is backed up and can be recovered with ease. EBS provides point-in-time snapshots, which can be stored in Amazon S3 and used to quickly recover or create new volumes as needed. These services enable efficient and reliable backup and recovery with minimal administrative effort.

In what situations is cross-region replication a preferable backup strategy?

Cross-region replication is preferable when there is a requirement to mitigate the risk associated with regional-level failures, such as natural disasters or data center outages. It is also suitable when compliance or regulatory requirements dictate that data be stored at geographically diverse locations to prevent data loss.

Describe the importance of having an automated backup process in place.

An automated backup process eliminates human error from the backup procedure, ensures that backups occur on a regular schedule without manual intervention, and allows for scalability and reliability in the backup strategy. It reduces the risk of data loss and helps in achieving compliance with data protection policies.

What AWS service would you use for orchestrating disaster recovery procedures, and why?

AWS CloudFormation can be used for orchestrating disaster recovery procedures as it allows the automation of infrastructure provisioning through templates. This enables quick replication of environments across regions or accounts and helps to standardize and streamline the recovery process.

Discuss how AWS’s Elastic Beanstalk service can be utilized in a recovery strategy.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk allows for quick deployment of applications by abstracting underlying infrastructure. In a recovery scenario, this service can rapidly re-deploy applications to a new environment, significantly reducing the Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

What role does AWS Storage Gateway play in backup strategies?

AWS Storage Gateway connects on-premises environments to cloud storage, offering seamless integration between the two. It supports various storage interfaces and enables hybrid storage setups, which can be crucial for incremental backups, real-time data replication, and secure transfer of backups to the cloud.

How important is it to regularly test your backup and recovery plan, and how can AWS assist in this process?

Regular testing of the backup and recovery plan is critical to ensure it functions as intended during an actual disaster scenario. AWS supports the process by providing services like AWS Disaster Recovery (AWS DR) and AWS Backup, which can simulate failovers and recovery, allowing teams to validate and refine their recovery procedures.

Explain the difference between AWS’s RTO and RPO, and why are they important in defining backup and recovery strategies?

RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is the target time set for the recovery of IT and business operations after a disaster. RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is the maximum targeted period in which data might be lost from an IT service due to a major incident.

They are important because they help define the specific objectives for backup frequency and recovery speed, aligning disaster recovery efforts with business needs.

How can AWS Lambda be leveraged within a backup and recovery strategy?

AWS Lambda can be leveraged to automate and trigger backup-related tasks, such as starting and stopping EC2 instances for snapshots, managing the lifecycle of backups, and alerting administrators of successful or failed backup jobs. Its serverless nature means it can run these tasks without provisioning or managing servers, allowing for both cost efficiency and scalability.

In a multi-account AWS environment, what strategies would you employ to manage backup and recovery across all accounts?

In a multi-account environment, AWS Backup can be used to centralize and automate data protection across AWS services and accounts. Additionally, AWS Organizations can be used to manage policies and permissions, ensuring a consistent backup and recovery strategy is applied across all accounts. Central governance and logging through services like AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config can provide insights into compliance and the operational health of the backup and recovery processes.