Disaster Recovery Policy

Full DR Policy and drills are logged to be done under User Story 210382: Add a system for testing disaster recovery for Azure client production data. Once complete this will be updated with the "in place" policy.

Azure SQL Databases

Backups

Automated Backups: Azure SQL Database provides automatic backups by default. (no action)

Point-in-Time Restore Verification: Test restoring backups to verify data integrity and recovery processes (to split SQL pool)

Frequency: Restore verification (monthly)

Reporting: Store results - for distribution to clients on request

Performance Monitoring and Tuning

Performance Monitoring: Use Azure SQL Analytics, Query Performance Insight, or other monitoring tools to track performance metrics

Index Maintenance: Rebuild indexes

Statistics: UpdateStats

Query Optimisation: Identify and optimise long-running queries

Frequency: Update Stats (daily), Index maintenance (weekly), Query optimisation (monthly)

Reporting: Log slow running queries to C8 team

Security Management

TBC

Database Maintenance

Integrity Checks: Run DBCC CHECKDB

Update Statistics: Ensure statistics are updated to maintain query performance.

Frequency: Integrity checks (weekly), Update statistics (weekly).

Disaster Recovery Planning

DR Drills: Conduct disaster recovery drills to test failover and recovery procedures

Review DR Plan: Update and review the "disaster recovery plan" based on drill outcomes

Frequency: DR drills (annually), DR plan review (annually).

Azure Storage Accounts

Replication: Replicated across different geographical locations.

Frequency: One-time setup with periodic review (annually)

Regular Backups

Backup Strategy: Recovery Point stratergy for 31 days

Frequency: As per RPO (Recovery Point Objective) requirements

Monitoring and Alerts

Metrics and Logs: Enable and review metrics and logs for storage accounts to monitor usage, performance, and detect anomalies

Alerts: Set up alerts for critical metrics and events (e.g., storage capacity, transaction rates)

Frequency: Review of alerts and logs (weekly)

Data Integrity Checks

Azure Blob Storage: Use features like Azure Blob Storage's lifecycle management policies to automatically check and maintain data integrity

Frequency: As per policy schedule (weekly)

Disaster Recovery Drills

Failover Testing: Conduct failover testing to ensure that data can be successfully replicated and accessed from the secondary region

Recovery Procedures: Document and test the recovery procedures to ensure they are effective and up-to-date.

Frequency: Drill (annually)

Geo-Replication Testing

Read-Access Geo-Redundant Storage (RA-GRS): Regularly test accessing data from the secondary region in read-only mode to ensure it is available

Frequency: Test data access (quarterly)

Reporting Back to Clients

Frequency: Report of checks and results of all of the above (quarterly)