Automated Backup & Disaster Recovery

Automated backup and disaster recovery ensures business continuity by protecting data and applications from failures, disasters, or outages.

Why Backup & DR Matters

  • Data Protection: Prevent loss due to accidental deletion or corruption
  • High Availability: Reduce downtime during failures
  • Regulatory Compliance: Meet data retention policies
  • Business Continuity: Ensure operations can resume quickly

Workflow Example

  1. Schedule automated backups (databases, configurations, applications)
  2. Store backups in multiple locations (cloud, on-prem)
  3. Test recovery procedures regularly
  4. Automate failover and disaster recovery scripts
  5. Monitor backup success and restore times

Visual Diagram

flowchart TD A[Application & DB] --> B[Automated Backup] B --> C[Cloud Storage / Offsite] D[Test Recovery] --> E[DR Drill] B --> F[Monitoring & Alerts] F --> G[DevOps Team Notification]

Sample Code Snippet

import boto3
from datetime import datetime
s3 = boto3.client('s3')
def backup_to_s3(file_name, bucket_name):
    timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S")
    s3_key = f"backups/{file_name}_{timestamp}.bak"
    s3.upload_file(file_name, bucket_name, s3_key)
    print(f"Backup {file_name} uploaded to {s3_key} in bucket {bucket_name}")
# Usage
backup_to_s3('database.db', 'my-backup-bucket')

Sample AWS Backup Automation (CLI)

# Create daily backup of RDS
aws rds create-db-snapshot \
    --db-instance-identifier mydb \
    --db-snapshot-identifier mydb-backup-$(date +%F)

Best Practices

  • Automate backup schedules and retention
  • Test restore procedures periodically
  • Store backups across regions or providers
  • Monitor backup failures and resolve issues promptly

Common Pitfalls

  • Backup failures unnoticed due to lack of monitoring
  • Infrequent DR drills
  • Single-location backup risking data loss

Conclusion

Automated backup and disaster recovery provides reliable data protection and operational continuity, critical for resilient DevOps pipelines.