Company Background
A highly regulated operator of critical market infrastructure runs one of its sector’s most complex annual disaster recovery (DR) programs: 150 applications and technical services, multiple technology domains, external connectivity providers, and four phases executed against live production.
The challenge: A ceiling, not a failure
The DR program wasn’t broken. Recovery outcomes were strong. The operating model underneath it was the problem.
Every exercise meant 15+ teams validating 150 services. Teams kept procedures in Word and Excel. Coordinators consolidated them by hand: slow, version-control intensive, and reliant on a few people who knew where everything lived.
Manual coordination had hit its ceiling. Complexity lowered it every year.
The solution: From manual coordination to controlled orchestration
Phase 1: Centralized orchestration
Cutover replaced manual execution management. Coordinators gained one operational view of the whole event: no status calls, no spreadsheets to reconcile. Real-time progress, consistent reporting, and complete audit trails became byproducts of execution.
Phase 2: Federated runbook ownership
As the program grew, a single central runbook became the bottleneck. The organization moved to a federated model on Cutover’s linked runbooks. Application, infrastructure, and shared-service teams own their runbooks year-round. Approved child runbooks are orchestrated through parent runbooks, one per recovery phase. Weeks of integration now take minutes. Teams keep accountability. Coordinators own orchestration and governance.
Key capabilities
Linked runbooks: federated ownership, central control.
Real-time dashboards: live status across every team and phase.
Automated audit trails: every step logged; evidence produced without effort.
Governance framework: standardized templates, approval workflows, version control, annual re-attestation.
The outcome: A scalable resilience capability
The organization now coordinates 150+ applications, 15+ teams, and 30–50 participants across four recovery phases with no added overhead. Governance and auditability are embedded in the operating model, not reconstructed afterward. Recovery knowledge once held by a few coordinators now lives in team-owned runbooks, maintained year-round.
KEY RESULTS
- 150+ applications and services in a single annual DR exercise
- Event assembly cut from weeks to minutes with linked runbooks
- 15+ teams and 30–50 participants, no added coordination overhead
- Audit evidence generated automatically, no post-event reconstruction
- Recovery knowledge codified in runbooks, not individuals
