Which disaster recovery architectural pattern is best suited for low costs?

The Backup and Restore architectural pattern stands out as the most cost-effective option for disaster recovery. This approach involves regularly backing up your data and applications to a storage service, such as Amazon S3 or another backup solution, and only restoring them when a failure occurs.

This method minimizes ongoing operational costs since it does not require duplicate infrastructure to be running at all times, as is the case with patterns that involve active-active configurations or a warm standby. In the Backup and Restore pattern, resources are only utilized and costs incurred during the backup process and if/when a recovery situation arises. Additionally, the simplicity of this pattern reduces complexity in management and maintenance, contributing to overall cost efficiency.

In contrast, the multi-site active-active approach requires duplication of resources across multiple sites, leading to significantly higher costs. The warm standby pattern necessitates maintaining partially active infrastructure, which also incurs ongoing expenses. The pilot light scenario involves keeping minimal resources running continuously, which, while more economical than full active-active configurations, still has associated costs that can exceed those of a purely backup and restore strategy.

For organizations with stringent budget constraints or those that can tolerate longer recovery times, the Backup and Restore pattern presents a balance of effectiveness and cost-efficiency that makes it an ideal choice