NYC-Based · HIPAA + Regulated Industry Experienced

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for New York City

Your business can't afford downtime. We make sure critical systems fail over in minutes, not hours. Tested quarterly, documented playbooks, SLA-backed recovery.

What disaster recovery actually means

Disaster recovery isn't a backup — it's a recovery architecture that keeps your business running when a primary site fails. A true DR plan includes tested failover procedures, documented runbooks, and defined Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO). Without it, an outage that should last 4 hours can stretch to 2 days, costing a mid-market firm $50K-$200K per hour in lost productivity and revenue.

Most NYC businesses we meet have backups sitting in a closet and hope they'll work. They won't. We build recovery environments that are actually tested — quarterly, on a schedule you see. Our DR plans specify what goes down first, what recovers first, and who owns each step.

How we structure your recovery plan

We start with a business continuity assessment. We map every system — email, databases, file servers, line-of-business apps — and assign each an RTO (how fast it must recover) and RPO (how much data loss is acceptable). A legal firm might need email back in 1 hour with zero data loss. A design shop might tolerate 4 hours and 15 minutes of data loss. Those numbers drive the architecture.

  • Azure Site Recovery (or Zerto) for VM failover with automated testing
  • Barracuda CloudGen for offsite backup with rapid restore, verified monthly
  • 3CX callout group with failover to PSTN for voice continuity
  • Documented runbooks per system, assigned owners, quarterly drill schedule
  • RTO/RPO SLAs in your contract — not a promise, a guarantee with remedies

Disaster recovery for regulated industries

Financial services firms (FINRA brokerages, RIAs, asset managers) must meet SEC and FINRA DR requirements: documented recovery procedures, annual testing, and recovery within 4 hours of critical systems. Healthcare practices (see /services/compliance/) must meet HIPAA Business Associate Agreement obligations for patient data. Legal firms under NY Bar regulations must ensure client confidentiality isn't lost in a recovery event.

We've built recovery architectures for all three. We know NY DFS Cybersecurity Requirements Part 23 and where recovery fits into the audit checklist. We document the plan so your compliance officer can point auditors at it and say 'this is how we meet the standard.'

Testing, drills, and proof

A recovery plan that's never tested is a fairytale. Every quarter, we run a DR drill in your environment — either full failover or controlled sandbox. You see the recovery work. Your team runs through the runbook. We measure actual RTO and RPO and publish the results. If recovery takes longer than your SLA, we fix the architecture before the next drill.

We also maintain a quarterly attestation: 'Systems X, Y, Z recovered to production status in H minutes with M minutes of data loss. Test completed on [date]. Next test scheduled [date].' That goes in your compliance file and gives your auditors real proof, not theory.

Common mistakes we fix

Backups without recovery testing. A CPA firm we onboarded had daily backups to AWS but had never actually tried to restore a server. When we tested, the restore took 6 hours and lost 4 hours of email. We rebuilt the backup strategy with incremental backups and verified Veeam instant recovery.

No RTO/RPO clarity. A financial services client thought 'disaster recovery' meant their QuickBooks was safe. It was — but nobody knew how long it would take to get back online. We modeled recovery time for critical apps and adjusted backup frequency and failover geography to hit a 2-hour RTO for the trading platform.

Off-site backup in the same room. Backups in a hot standby server six feet away don't survive a fire, flood, or ransomware attack. We consolidate to cloud (Azure, AWS, or Barracuda Backup). Offsite means geographically separate — at least 50 miles.

Disaster recovery for SMBs — not just enterprise

Large enterprises can afford a full secondary data center. SMBs can't. That's why we use hybrid architectures: critical systems in Azure Site Recovery with hourly failover capability, mid-tier systems in Barracuda backups with 4-hour recovery, and non-critical systems in standard nightly backups. You pay for what you need to recover fast and leave the rest at a lower SLA.

Cost is fixed and predictable. A typical mid-market DR plan runs $3K-$6K per month as an add-on to managed IT, depending on system count and RTO/RPO requirements. You know the price upfront. No surprise bills when disaster hits.

What happens when disaster strikes

You call us (or we page our on-call engineer if it's after-hours). We declare a recovery event and activate your runbook. Critical systems start failing over to Azure within 15 minutes. Email, file servers, and essential LOB apps are back online within 2-4 hours depending on your RTO. We keep you in the loop with status updates every 30 minutes. Your team connects to recovered systems, verifies data, and starts working again.

We run recovery for 24-72 hours until your primary infrastructure is repaired or rebuilt. Once you're stable, we conduct a post-incident review: what went right, what could improve, and what we'll change in the playbook for next time. We also run a post-recovery test to make sure all systems are fully synchronized.

Azure Site Recovery with failover SLA

VMs replicate continuously to Azure with automatic failover on command. Unplanned failover completes in under 15 minutes. Tested quarterly in a sandbox environment. RTO target: 2-4 hours for critical tier.

Barracuda CloudGen backup and restore

Incremental daily backups replicate offsite. Instant restore of full VMs or individual files. Ransomware immutable snapshots to prevent backup deletion. RPO target: under 1 hour for critical data.

Quarterly DR drills with documented results

Every 90 days, we execute a controlled failover test. You see recovery times for each system. Results published in an attestation your auditors can reference. Failures trigger architecture improvement within 30 days.

Documented runbooks per system

Recovery procedures are written, tested, and assigned to named engineers. Each runbook includes step-by-step failover, verification steps, and rollback procedures. Reviewed and updated annually.

RTO and RPO SLAs in contract

Your plan specifies recovery times and data loss tolerances by system tier. SLAs are backed by our service credits if we miss them. No ambiguity — you know what to expect.

Compliance alignment for regulated verticals

HIPAA BAA, FINRA / SEC recovery requirements, and NY DFS Cybersecurity Regulation covered. Recovery plan integrates into your audit checklist and regulatory filings.

Frequently asked

A backup is a copy of your data at a point in time. Disaster recovery is the entire process of testing that copy, documenting how to restore it, and executing that restoration under pressure. We provide both — backups (Barracuda) and a full DR architecture (Azure Site Recovery + runbooks + drills). Backups alone won't save you if your primary systems are down and you don't know how to restore them.
It depends on your RTO (Recovery Time Objective). For critical systems (email, databases, trading platforms), we target 2-4 hours from failover command to business-as-usual. For standard systems, 4-8 hours. For non-critical systems, 1-2 business days. We measure actual recovery time during quarterly drills and adjust the architecture if we're missing the SLA.
We do it. Your team doesn't need to know how to execute a failover — that's our job as your MSP. We handle the technical recovery, verify system integrity, and hand you back working infrastructure. Your team focuses on business continuity, not wrestling with infrastructure. During the recovery, you get status updates every 30 minutes.
Fixed monthly cost depending on system count and RTO/RPO requirements. Typical mid-market plan (15-25 critical systems) runs $3K-$6K per month on top of managed IT. The cost includes Azure replication, Barracuda backups, quarterly drills, and runbook updates. No surprises when disaster hits.
Yes, if your plan includes it. Critical systems replicate to Azure and can failover within 15 minutes. Mid-tier systems in Barracuda backups can restore within 4-6 hours. Non-critical systems restore within 1-2 business days. The question is what 'critical' means for your business — that's what we figure out in the assessment phase. We design recovery based on your risk tolerance and budget.
We test. Every quarter, we execute a DR drill in a sandbox or controlled environment. You see actual recovery times. We document the results and publish an attestation: 'System X recovered in Y minutes on [date].' That goes in your compliance file. If recovery misses the SLA, we improve the architecture before the next test. No surprises in a real disaster.

See how fast your systems can recover

We'll assess your current backup strategy and model recovery time for critical systems. No charge for the assessment.

Schedule a free DR assessment