What is Disaster Recovery? — UK Software Development Guide
Direct Answer
Disaster Recovery (DR) is the set of processes, policies, and tools that enable an organisation to recover its IT systems and data after a disruptive event — such as hardware failure, data centre outage, ransomware attack, or natural disaster. DR planning defines: Recovery Time Objective (RTO — how quickly systems must recover) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO — how much data loss is acceptable).
Disaster-recovery in the UK
Disaster Recovery has specific UK regulatory significance. FCA operational resilience requirements (PS21/3) require regulated firms to define impact tolerances (equivalent to RTO/RPO) and test their ability to remain within those tolerances during disruption. NHS DSP Toolkit Standard 10 requires documented business continuity and DR plans. UK GDPR Article 32 requires the "ability to restore the availability and access to personal data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident." Cyber Essentials does not explicitly address DR but does require patch management that reduces the attack surface.
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