Runbook 01 Build Enterprise Backup, Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Solution

Module: 10 – Backup, Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

Enterprise Lab: 01

Estimated Time: 5–6 Hours

Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Estimated Cost: AWS Backup, AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS), Cross-Region Replication, and backup storage may incur charges. Review AWS Pricing and monitor AWS Cost Explorer throughout this lab.

🎯 Objective

As a Cloud Security Engineer at CloudNova Technologies, your responsibility is to design and implement an enterprise-grade backup and disaster recovery solution that protects critical workloads from accidental deletion, ransomware attacks, hardware failures, and regional outages.

By completing this runbook, you will learn how to:

Configure AWS Backup
Create Backup Vaults
Create Backup Plans
Configure Backup Policies
Protect Amazon EC2
Protect Amazon EBS
Protect Amazon RDS
Enable Amazon S3 Versioning
Configure Amazon S3 Cross-Region Replication
Configure AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS)
Configure Backup Encryption
Validate Backups
Restore Resources
Perform Disaster Recovery Testing
Validate Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
Validate Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

🏢 Business Scenario

CloudNova Technologies hosts multiple customer-facing business applications in AWS.

Following several high-profile ransomware attacks across the industry, executive management has requested a complete backup and disaster recovery strategy to ensure business continuity.

The environment must be capable of recovering from:

Accidental resource deletion
Ransomware attacks
Data corruption
Availability Zone failures
Regional disasters
Infrastructure failures

As the Cloud Security Engineer, you are responsible for implementing and validating the recovery solution before production deployment.

📋 Prerequisites

Complete:

Module 01 – AWS Security Foundations
Module 02 – Identity & Access Management
Module 03 – AWS Organizations & Multi-Account Security
Module 04 – Amazon VPC & Network Security
Module 05 – Amazon EC2 Security
Module 06 – Data Protection & Encryption
Module 07 – Logging, Monitoring & Threat Detection
Module 08 – Network Protection
Module 09 – Vulnerability & Compliance Management

Required:

AWS Account
Administrator Access
Existing EC2 Instance
Existing Amazon RDS Database
Existing Amazon S3 Bucket
AWS CLI Installed
Visual Studio Code

🏗 Enterprise Architecture

                    CloudNova AWS Production

                EC2        Amazon RDS       Amazon S3
                  │              │              │
                  └──────┬───────┴──────────────┘
                         │
                    AWS Backup
                         │
                  Backup Vault
                         │
          Encrypted Recovery Points
                         │
             Cross-Region Backup Copy
                         │
      AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery
                         │
        Disaster Recovery Region
                         │
         Recovery Testing Environment

Step 1 — Configure AWS Backup

Navigate to:

AWS Console

↓

AWS Backup

↓

Getting Started

Enable AWS Backup.

Review:

Backup Vaults
Backup Plans
Protected Resources

AWS CLI

aws backup list-backup-vaults

Validate:

AWS Backup Enabled
Backup Service Operational

Step 2 — Create Backup Vault

Navigate to:

AWS Backup

↓

Backup Vaults

↓

Create Backup Vault

Configuration

Vault Name

CloudNova-Production-Vault

Encryption

AWS KMS Customer Managed Key

Validate:

Vault Created
Encryption Enabled

Step 3 — Create Backup Plan

Navigate to:

AWS Backup

↓

Backup Plans

↓

Create Backup Plan

Configure:

Daily Backup
Weekly Backup
Monthly Backup
Annual Backup

Retention Example

Daily

30 Days

Weekly

12 Weeks

Monthly

12 Months

Discuss:

Retention Policies
Compliance Requirements
Backup Scheduling

Step 4 — Protect Amazon EC2

Assign EC2 instances to the Backup Plan.

Validate:

EC2 Protected
Recovery Points Created

Review:

Backup Jobs
Recovery Points

Step 5 — Protect Amazon EBS Volumes

Review attached EBS volumes.

Ensure:

Automated Snapshots
Encryption Enabled
Backup Retention Configured

AWS CLI

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids self

Step 6 — Protect Amazon RDS

Navigate to:

Amazon RDS

↓

Databases

↓

Backups

Verify:

Automated Backups Enabled
Backup Retention
Point-in-Time Recovery

Review:

Snapshot Schedule
Recovery Window

Step 7 — Configure Amazon S3 Versioning

Navigate to:

Amazon S3

↓

Bucket

↓

Properties

Enable:

Versioning

Discuss:

Accidental Deletion
Ransomware Recovery
Object Recovery

AWS CLI

aws s3api get-bucket-versioning \
--bucket YOUR_BUCKET_NAME

Step 8 — Configure Cross-Region Replication

Configure:

Destination Region
IAM Replication Role
Replication Rules

Validate:

Objects Replicated
Replication Status

Discuss:

Regional Disaster Recovery
High Availability

Step 9 — Configure AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS)

Navigate to:

AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery

Configure:

Source Servers
Replication Settings
Staging Area
Recovery Servers

Validate:

Replication Healthy
Recovery Ready

Discuss:

Pilot Light
Warm Standby
Active/Passive Recovery

Step 10 — Validate Backup Encryption

Review:

Backup Vault Encryption
Snapshot Encryption
RDS Encryption
S3 Encryption
KMS Keys

Questions:

Are all backups encrypted?
Are customer-managed keys used where appropriate?

Step 11 — Perform Backup Validation

Review:

Backup Jobs
Recovery Points
Backup Success Rate
Backup Failures

Ensure:

No failed backup jobs
Recovery Points available
Backup schedules operating correctly

Step 12 — Perform Recovery Test

Restore:

EC2 Instance
EBS Volume
Amazon RDS Database
Amazon S3 Object

Validate:

Successful Recovery
Application Starts
Data Integrity Maintained

Step 13 — Validate Disaster Recovery Objectives

Measure:

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Target

≤ 15 Minutes

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Target

≤ 60 Minutes

Document:

Actual Recovery Time
Data Loss
Recovery Challenges

🧪 Enterprise Challenge

CloudNova Technologies has suffered a ransomware attack affecting its production AWS environment.

The attack resulted in:

Critical EC2 instances encrypted
Production RDS database corrupted
Important files deleted from Amazon S3
Regional outage impacting primary workloads

As the Cloud Security Engineer, you must:

Recover EC2 instances
Restore the RDS database
Recover deleted S3 objects
Validate backup integrity
Activate Disaster Recovery procedures
Measure actual RPO and RTO
Document the recovery process
Present an executive recovery report to the CISO

📄 Deliverables

Capture screenshots of:

AWS Backup Dashboard
Backup Vault
Backup Plan
Recovery Points
EBS Snapshots
Amazon RDS Backup
Amazon S3 Versioning
Cross-Region Replication
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery
Restored Resources

Submit:

Backup Architecture Diagram
Disaster Recovery Architecture
Business Continuity Plan
Recovery Test Report
RPO/RTO Results
Executive Summary

🧹 Cleanup

Delete:

Test EC2 Recovery Instances
Test EBS Volumes
Test Recovery Resources
Temporary Recovery Servers
Test Snapshots (if no longer required)

Keep:

Backup Vault
Backup Plans
Production Recovery Points
Disaster Recovery Documentation
Business Continuity Procedures

Review AWS Cost Explorer to ensure no unnecessary recovery resources remain active.

✅ Runbook Checklist

💡 Lessons Learned

What did you learn?

Why should backup recovery be tested regularly instead of assuming backups will work?

How do AWS Backup, Amazon S3 Versioning, and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery work together to improve resilience?

Why are RPO and RTO critical metrics when designing enterprise disaster recovery solutions?

How would you improve CloudNova Technologies’ backup and disaster recovery strategy for a multi-region AWS environment?

🚀 Next Enterprise Runbook

Enterprise Runbook 02 — Enterprise Backup & Disaster Recovery Assessment

In the next runbook, you will assess an enterprise AWS backup and disaster recovery implementation by reviewing backup configurations, recovery points, backup encryption, disaster recovery readiness, recovery testing, business continuity documentation, and resilience controls to produce a comprehensive executive disaster recovery assessment report.