Disaster Recovery (DR) is the planned process to restore IT services after a major incident — datacenter loss, cyberattack, or extended outage — not just a single deleted file. A DR plan defines roles, communication trees, failover order (email first vs. ERP), and how to invoke cloud replicas or warm standby environments. Canadian businesses should align DR with insurance, legal hold, and privacy breach notification under PIPEDA. DR differs from backup: backup provides data; DR provides continuity. Test the full runbook annually; tabletop exercises reveal gaps in contact lists and vendor dependencies.
