Considerations for building a database disaster recovery plan

This post introduces key considerations for building a database disaster recovery plan. It differentiates between High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR), defines Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) as critical metrics, and explains the stateful nature of databases versus stateless code. It details MySQL replication (asynchronous vs. semi-synchronous) and backup strategies (logical vs. physical, full vs. incremental), highlighting PlanetScale's practice of using read-only replicas for backups and validating them by restoring to a backup-dedicated replica. The post also provides actionable advice on defining RPOs/RTOs with business leadership, using cross-region replication for faster recovery, prioritizing restoration efforts, quantifying downtime in terms of lost revenue, and automating the recovery process.