A single power outage. A flood warning. A ransomware link clicked by mistake. That’s all it takes to bring your business to a standstill. In moments like these, having a proper Disaster Recovery (DR) checklist isn’t just a formality—it’s a critical part of your overall risk management and resilience strategy. 

At IP ServerOne, we’ve seen how unexpected downtime can ripple across teams, customers, and revenue. That’s why we built Acorn Recovery as a Service—a fully managed backup and disaster recovery solution designed for real-world risks, not just ideal scenarios. When things go south, our team is ready to step in fast to get your systems back online and your business moving. 

Because at IP ServerOne, “We Host Better” means being prepared—long before a crisis hits. 

What Is a DR Checklist? 

A Disaster Recovery (DR) checklist is a step-by-step guide that helps your organization respond quickly and effectively when disaster strikes. It outlines exactly what needs to be done to restore your critical IT systems, data, and business operations—minimizing downtime and confusion in high-pressure situations. 

More than just a list, it’s a key part of your broader Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), turning strategy into clear, actionable steps your team or DRaaS provider can follow to get your business back on track fast. 

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Why Businesses Should Have a DR Checklist in Place? 

Disruption doesn’t wait. Whether it’s a ransomware attack, power outage, or flood, having a solid Disaster Recovery (DR) checklist gives your business a clear path forward when things go wrong. 

Here’s why it matters: 

• Keeps You Running: A step-by-step checklist means faster response, reduced downtime, and minimal disruption to operations and customers. 

• Protects What Matters: It safeguards your critical data, IT systems, and infrastructure—so you don’t lose what you’ve worked hard to build. 

• Saves You Money: Quick, structured recovery reduces revenue loss, avoids compliance penalties, and cuts down the cost of chaos. 

• Builds Trust: Customers and partners expect reliability. A business that recovers fast shows it’s prepared—and earns loyalty. 

• Strengthens Resilience: A tested checklist highlights weak spots, clarifies responsibilities, and helps your team stay focused under pressure. 

In short, it’s not just about bouncing back—it’s about doing so quickly, correctly, and with confidence. At IP ServerOne, we believe that having the right tools in place—like our Acorn Recovery as a Service—can make all the difference between business-as-usual and total disruption. 

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How to Build Your Own DR Checklist in 10 Steps 

Step 1: Define Your RTO and RPO – Set Practical Recovery Goals 

Before you dive into the technical steps, you need to set clear recovery targets: 

• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): How long can your systems be down before it seriously impacts your business? 

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): How much data loss is acceptable during a disruption? 

Let’s say your online sales system can’t afford more than 15 minutes of downtime, and up to 1 hour of data loss is acceptable. That means your RTO is 15 minutes, and RPO is 1 hour. 

These metrics aren’t just numbers—they guide your disaster recovery strategy, influence infrastructure planning, and help you choose the right DRaaS plan that fits your business needs. 

Step 2: Inventory All Assets – Know What Needs Recovery First 

You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. Start by building a detailed inventory of everything that keeps your business running: 

• Physical servers, virtual machines (VMs), and network equipment 

• Software systems, licenses, and configurations 

• IP addresses, SSL certificates, and database credentials 

Once everything is listed, prioritize it based on business impact. For example, your payment gateway may need to be restored first, followed by email systems, and then archived files. This ensures your DR checklist focuses on what matters most—first. 

Step 3: Perform Risk Assessment & Business Impact Analysis 

Start by identifying both local and digital risks. Think monsoon floods in Klang Valley, cable cuts, power outages—alongside growing cyber threats like ransomware. 

Evaluate each risk by: 

• Likelihood (e.g., Monsoon flood: Medium) 

• Impact (e.g., Payment gateway: High – 24/7 revenue dependency) 

Then, conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to identify which systems are truly mission-critical. This helps you decide where DRaaS needs to step in—and how robust your recovery infrastructure should be. 

Local threats—floods in Klang Valley, cable cuts, power grid instability—should be mapped alongside cyber-risks like ransomware. Estimate both likelihood (e.g., “monsoon flood risk: medium”) and impact (e.g., “payment gateway: revenue 24/7”). A Business Impact Analysis clarifies which systems require DRaaS and how robust your infrastructure needs to be. 

Step 4: Assign Your DR Team & Define Roles 

Here are the key roles: 

• DR Coordinator: Oversees the entire recovery process and acts as the main decision-maker. 

• System Administrator: Handles technical recovery tasks like server failover, data restoration, and system validation. 

• Communication Lead: Manages internal updates, external communications, and ensures key stakeholders stay informed. 

• Vendor Liaison: Coordinates with DRaaS providers, data center contacts, or third-party service providers. 

Everyone on the team should know their responsibilities before a crisis hits—and who steps in if someone is unavailable. 

 Step 5: Choose Your Backup & Failover Strategy 

Understand how your business will recover data and systems when a disaster hits. Choosing the right strategy ensures your business bounces back with minimal downtime. 

Here’s the difference: 

• Backup as a Service (BaaS): Stores your data securely offsite or in the cloud. Ideal for restoring files or systems—but full recovery can take hours or even days. 

• Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS): Goes beyond data. DRaaS replicates your entire IT environment—servers, apps, settings—to a ready-to-launch site for near-instant recovery. 

It’s important to understand the difference between BaaS and DRaaS. Depending on your recovery needs and budget, some businesses may only require one or the other. But in many cases, you don’t have to choose. 

With Acorn Recovery as a Service by IP ServerOne, you get both—managed backup and disaster recovery—in one complete solution. 

Now, ask yourself: If everything went down right now, how long could your business afford to stay offline? 
If the answer is minutes, not hours, then a DRaaS solution like Acorn Recovery isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. 

Whatever your setup, your DR strategy should align with your business’s risk tolerance, customer expectations, and regulatory requirements. 

Step 6: Network & IP Address Management 

Your disaster recovery strategy is only as effective as the network it runs on. Mismanaged IPs or network settings can lead to major delays, failed connections, or even complete access blocks during a recovery. 

Here’s what to plan for: 

• Secondary IP routing: Your DR site should be ready to handle traffic just like your primary site—with proper routing in place for both inbound and outbound traffic. 

• DNS redirection: Use DNS failover tools or automation scripts to quickly switch your domain to the DR site with minimal delay. 

• Static IP considerations: If your applications rely on static IPs, plan ahead for how to replicate or reroute them during failover. 

• Firewall rules & access controls: Mirror your firewall policies at the DR site and test them regularly to maintain both security and access. 

• NAT & VPN configurations: Ensure secure internal communication between your systems and the DR environment through properly configured VPNs or NAT rules. 

Getting this right means your users, apps, and partners can reconnect smoothly—even when your main systems are down. 

Step 7: Communication Plan 

A clear and effective communication plan can make all the difference during a disaster. When systems go down, confusion and panic can spread just as fast. Having the right people informed at the right time helps prevent small issues from becoming bigger problems. 

Here’s what to include: 

• Internal alerts: Make sure your team knows who to contact and how to do it. Use multiple channels—SMS, WhatsApp, email alerts, or internal dashboards—for fast, reliable updates. 

• Leadership briefings: Keep key decision-makers informed with timely updates so they can respond quickly and confidently. 

• Customer notifications: Be transparent. Prepare pre-written templates for emails, SMS, and social media to communicate outages or service updates. 

• Vendor coordination: Inform your DRaaS provider, cloud platforms, and any third-party vendors involved in your infrastructure. 

• Regulatory reporting: If required, ensure your plan includes steps to report incidents to relevant authorities (e.g., under PDPA for data breaches). 

Your communication plan should be easy to follow, with clear roles, escalation paths, and pre-approved messaging. Because during a crisis, clarity is everything. 

Step 8: Run DR Tests & Simulations 

Testing your disaster recovery plan isn’t just a checkbox—it’s your reality check. Yet, many businesses avoid it out of fear: fear of disrupting live systems, fear of complications, or simply not knowing where to start. 

But skipping tests is a bigger risk. 

Regular DR drills prove whether your plan actually works. They train your team to respond confidently under pressure and reveal whether your backup systems can truly support your business when it matters most. 

Here’s how to run DR tests effectively: 

• Simulate real scenarios: Don’t just test perfect conditions. Run drills for ransomware attacks, power failures, or full system crashes. 

• Test during off-peak hours: Reduce risk by scheduling simulations during low-traffic times, with a clear rollback plan in place. 

• Involve more than just IT: Recovery affects everyone. Include operations, compliance, and customer support in your testing process. 

• Check communication flow: Make sure alerts and updates reach the right people, fast. 

• Measure performance: Track time to failover, data integrity, and user access. 

• Document everything: Log what happened, what worked, what didn’t—and what needs fixing. 

• Debrief and update: Review results with your team and refine your DR checklist based on what you’ve learned. 

Every test brings you closer to a recovery process you can trust. And in a real crisis, that preparation makes all the difference. 

Step 9: Prepare for Failback to Your Primary Environment 

Once the crisis is over and systems are stable, it’s time to shift operations back to your primary environment. While Disaster Recovery (DR) sites are built for resilience, they’re rarely meant for long-term use—so failback must be done carefully. 

Here’s what to include: 

• Safely migrate operations from your DR site to the primary infrastructure 

• Clean up temporary or cloud-based DR environments 

• Validate that all recovered data is complete, accurate, and consistent 

• Review logs and alerts to understand the root cause of the incident 

Expect some minor downtime or disruption during this phase—but with the right DRaaS solution, like Acorn Recovery, failback can be smooth and controlled. Just like your failover process, failback should be planned, tested, and seamless. 

Step 10: Ongoing Maintenance & Review 

Creating a disaster recovery plan isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s a dynamic document that requires regular check-ins to remain effective and relevant. As your business grows—bringing in new systems, vendors, and risks—your DR plan should evolve right along with it. 

At the very least, you should review your plan every three months or after any significant changes to your infrastructure. Here are some essential steps to consider: 

• Revalidate your RTO/RPO: Are your recovery objectives still aligned with business needs? What worked a year ago may not be fast enough today. 

• Update contacts and roles: Make sure your DR team list reflects current staff—and that everyone knows their responsibilities. 

• Apply lessons from testing: Every simulation teaches something. Fix gaps, strengthen what worked, and document all changes. 

• Stay compliant: Regulations like ISO 27001 and Malaysia’s PDPA evolve. Keep your plan aligned to avoid risks and maintain trust. 

Think of this as routine maintenance for your business continuity engine. Regular upkeep ensures you’re prepared for the unexpected—so you won’t be scrambling when it matters most. 

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How Acorn Recovery Enhances Your DR Strategy

Acorn Recovery as a Service by IP ServerOne brings every step of your disaster recovery checklist into one cohesive, fully managed solution: 

• Simple, guided interface with managed orchestration for fast, error-free DR execution 

• Rapid recovery within minutes—not days—powered by warm-standby infrastructure 

• Secure and compliant, with immutable backup storage, dual Disaster Recovery Centres (DRCs), and adherence to ISO standards, SOC 2 Type II, and RMiT guidelines 

• Built-in DR drills and reporting, including one annual test and a 10-day DR activation window 

Designed for Malaysian businesses, Acorn Recovery offers a full-featured, OPEX-friendly managed backup and disaster recovery solution—backed by 24/7 local support you can count on. 

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What to do next?  

A strong DR checklist does more than reduce downtime—it protects your brand, keeps customers confident, and ensures you’re in line with Malaysia’s compliance requirements. 

Need help building a customized DR strategy for your business? 
Reach out to IP ServerOne today and take the guesswork out of disaster recovery—so you can focus on what matters most: running your business. 

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