# A practical disaster-recovery runbook template worksheet

Adapt this planning resource to your environment. Examples are illustrative, not completed checks. Do not record secrets.

- Service / scope:
- Accountable owner:
- Reviewer:
- Environment / version:
- Review date:
- Approval / change reference:
- Next review trigger:

## Make the first page useful during an outage

- [ ] Record the service name, runbook owner, version, review date and activation authority.
- Environment-specific action:
- Expected result / stop condition:
- Observed result and evidence:
- Owner / due date:

## Recover in dependency order

| Stage | Owner role | Gate before continuing | Your record | Owner | Evidence reference | Status / due date |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Declare and contain | Incident lead | Scope, authority and communication agreed |  |  |  |  |
| Recover prerequisites | Infrastructure lead | Identity, DNS, storage and access verified |  |  |  |  |
| Restore data | Recovery operator | Correct point and destination confirmed |  |  |  |  |
| Validate service | Application owner | Business transaction accepted |  |  |  |  |
| Resume operation | Incident lead | Monitoring, communications and rollback ready |  |  |  |  |

## Put decision gates around dangerous transitions

- [ ] Before restoring over production or switching traffic, confirm the recovery point, current incident containment and the effect on data written since that point.
- Environment-specific action:
- Expected result / stop condition:
- Observed result and evidence:
- Owner / due date:

## Exercise the document, not just the infrastructure

- [ ] Ask a responder who did not write the runbook to follow it in a controlled exercise.
- Environment-specific action:
- Expected result / stop condition:
- Observed result and evidence:
- Owner / due date:

## Closure

- Outcome: not started / pass / partial pass / fail
- Exceptions, owner and due date:
- Acceptance / approval:
- Follow-up and cleanup:

Source article: https://happysysadm.com/backup-recovery/disaster-recovery-runbook/