Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan for a European Logistics Firm, Reducing Recovery Time by 70%

Client Profile

A Brussels-based logistics company managing freight forwarding and warehouse operations across the Benelux region, relying on real-time IT systems for shipment tracking, inventory management, and partner integrations.

Industry Logistics and Supply Chain
Location Brussels, Belgium
Company Size ~120 employees
Duration 6 months

Technologies Used

AWS Azure

Business Challenge

The client had no structured disaster recovery plan. Critical systems — shipment tracking, warehouse management, and partner API integrations — ran without redundancy across a single cloud region. A 4-hour outage during peak season exposed the risk, resulting in delayed shipments and manual workarounds. The leadership team required a proven recovery strategy with documented procedures and regular validation.

Solution

We designed and implemented a disaster recovery solution using AWS Backup for automated snapshots and Azure Site Recovery for cross-provider failover capability. Multi-region replication ensured that critical databases and application state could be restored in a secondary region within minutes. We established a recurring fire-drill schedule — every six months and one month before peak season — covering all critical systems, applications, and databases. Each drill is documented with measured recovery times and identified improvements.

Outcome

Recovery times were reduced by 70%. The fire-drill programme validated readiness before every peak season, and the documented procedures enabled the client’s own IT team to execute recovery independently. The client has since passed two partner compliance audits that specifically evaluated disaster recovery capability.

Process

1

Infrastructure Audit

Conducted a comprehensive audit of all IT systems, identifying single points of failure, undocumented dependencies, and systems without backup coverage.

2

Critical System Prioritisation

Classified all systems by business impact and recovery priority. Shipment tracking and partner API integrations were designated as highest priority with the strictest recovery time objectives.

3

Multi-Region Replication

Configured automated database replication and application state synchronisation to a secondary AWS region, ensuring data consistency within minutes of any primary region failure.

4

Cross-Provider Failover

Implemented Azure Site Recovery as a secondary failover path, providing resilience against provider-level outages in addition to regional failures.

5

Automated Backup and Monitoring

Deployed automated backups with incremental snapshots and configured monitoring to alert on backup failures, replication lag, and recovery readiness.

6

Failover Procedure Documentation

Created detailed, step-by-step recovery runbooks for every critical system, designed to be executable by the client's IT team without external support.

7

Fire-Drill Programme

Established a recurring schedule of controlled failover exercises — every six months and before each peak season. Each drill measures actual recovery times and identifies areas for improvement.

8

Team Training

Trained the client's IT team on cloud-native recovery processes, runbook execution, and post-drill review procedures to maintain long-term operational independence.

Conclusion

A well-designed disaster recovery plan is not a one-time project but an ongoing operational practice. Regular fire-drill testing ensures the plan works when it matters, and documented procedures give the team confidence to act under pressure.

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