My main responsibility was to design and deliver the end‑to‑end Disaster Recovery‑as‑a‑Service (DRaaS) architecture for all in‑scope services, ensuring regulatory alignment, adherence to business‑defined RPO/RTO targets, and adoption of automated, cloud‑native recovery mechanisms.

Service Understanding & Decomposition

Conducted a comprehensive service decomposition to break down each business service into its constituent technical components.
Identified critical sub‑services, dependencies, data flows, and operational touchpoints required to support minimum viable recovery (MVR).
Mapped mandatory operational processes to ensure that recovery sequencing aligned with business continuity requirements.

DR Strategy & Design Principles

Defined the DR strategy framework, including recovery tiers, prioritisation logic, and classification of services against business RPO/RTO expectations.
Established architectural principles covering automation, isolation, resilience, cost‑efficiency, and regulatory compliance.
Facilitated design workshops with the client to validate assumptions, refine priorities, and ensure alignment with governance and risk appetite.

Architecture Development

Designed a layered DRaaS architecture leveraging cloud‑native capabilities such as Azure Site Recovery and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery.
Developed tier‑specific policies for replication frequency, failover behaviour, data retention, and recovery automation.
Ensured cross‑cloud consistency in recovery patterns, security controls, and operational processes.

Automated Failover Orchestration

Authored detailed failover orchestration workflows, including:
     Defined boot order for application, database, and middleware layers.
     Documented dependency chains to ensure correct sequencing of services.
     Implemented staged health checks to validate service readiness before progressing through recovery steps.
Integrated orchestration with cloud‑native routing controls (e.g., DNS, load balancers, traffic managers) to enable seamless redirection of user traffic post‑failover.

Cyber Resilience & Recovery Environment

Developed cyber‑resilience standards across storage, network, identity, and data layers to ensure secure recovery posture.
Designed isolated recovery environments (cleanrooms) to support safe restoration activities without risk of reinfection or propagation of compromised artefacts.
Defined guardrails for privileged access, data sanitisation, and validation checks within the recovery environment.

Operationalisation & Governance

Created runbook templates and detailed guidance for recovery execution, including step‑by‑step procedures, validation criteria, and escalation paths.
Defined roles and responsibilities across engineering, operations, security, and governance teams to ensure clear accountability during DR events.
Integrated DRaaS processes into BAU operations, including change management, release cycles, and periodic testing frameworks.
Established governance mechanisms for continuous improvement, ensuring DR posture evolves with service changes and regulatory expectations.