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Success Stories / Disaster Recovery Environment Setup from Scratch

Disaster Recovery Environment Setup from Scratch

A leading English language assessment platform serving the United States and the United Kingdom partnered with Matoffo to build a comprehensive disaster recovery solution from scratch.
AWS Cloud ArchitectureCI/CD PipelinesEdTech
19 min read

Executive Summary

A leading English language assessment platform serving the United States and the United Kingdom partnered with Matoffo to build a comprehensive disaster recovery solution from scratch. Facing a strict RTO of 24 hours and RPO of 12 hours, the company needed to eliminate manual failover processes and establish automated business continuity capabilities. Matoffo delivered a serverless, AWS-native DR solution with multi-region deployment, automated health-check-driven failover, and real-time cross-region replication. Completed in under 2 months by a 2-person DevOps team, the solution achieved RTO < 1 hour (95%+ faster), RPO < 1 minute (99%+ faster), and 100% infrastructure redundancy across regions while maintaining HIPAA-level security compliance.

Client Background

A distinguished English language assessment provider with over 20 years of experience serving educational institutions and corporations globally. The platform combines artificial intelligence with expert human linguists to deliver accurate language proficiency assessments with CEFR alignment. As their global client base expanded, continuous availability and data integrity became critical for time-sensitive assessments and client trust. The company needed enterprise-grade disaster recovery to protect against regional outages, meet compliance requirements, and support growth without proportional infrastructure risk.

Client's Feedback

5.0
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"The disaster recovery solution has fundamentally changed how we think about our platform's reliability. We now have confidence that we can weather any storm—whether it's an AWS regional outage, a natural disaster, or any other disruption. Matoffo didn't just implement technology; they transformed our business continuity posture. The DR capabilities have already proven valuable in sales conversations, compliance discussions, and strategic planning sessions."

Technical Director,

Customer Challenge

Without formal disaster recovery capabilities, the client faced substantial business and technical risks that threatened their ability to serve thousands of test-takers reliably.

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Business pressures:

Any regional AWS outage could cause complete service disruption, threatening client relationships and revenue. Educational and corporate clients required guaranteed uptime for scheduled assessments. Compliance obligations demanded robust backup and recovery mechanisms. Service interruptions meant direct revenue loss and potential contractual penalties.
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Technical gaps:

All infrastructure resided in a single AWS region, creating a single point of failure. No automated failover mechanisms existed. Manual deployment and recovery procedures increased both time and error risk. No real-time data replication meant potential data loss spanning days during recovery scenarios.
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Operational constraints:

Strict RTO of 24 hours and RPO of 12 hours requirements without existing DR infrastructure. Limited internal DevOps resources. No documented procedures for disaster scenarios. Potential downtime could exceed 48-72 hours with manual processes.

Goals and Requirements

The client established clear, measurable objectives to transform their disaster recovery posture.

Performance Targets

  • RTO:

    24 hours maximum to restore full service availability

  • RPO:

    12 hours maximum acceptable data loss

  • Service Availability:

    Near-continuous availability through automated failover

  • Health Monitoring:

    Real-time monitoring and alerting for both regions

  • Data Protection:

    Real-time synchronization with zero corruption during replication

Financial & Operational Targets

  • Leverage serverless architecture to minimize idle DR infrastructure costs

  • Reduce manual intervention dependency and incident response overhead

  • Implement pay-per-use models, avoiding duplicate provisioned infrastructure

Scalability & Security

  • Multi-region deployment across AWS regions for geographical redundancy

  • Serverless foundation with automatic scaling without capacity planning

  • Zero-touch failover without extensive manual configuration

  • HIPAA-level security with encryption at rest and in transit

  • Comprehensive DR runbooks and regular testing capability

The Solution

Matoffo delivered a cloud-native, serverless DR platform on AWS, automating multi-region deployment, continuous replication, health monitoring, and automated failover—built for HIPAA-level security and enterprise disaster recovery best practices.

  1. 1

    Architecture Design & Multi-Region Infrastructure

    The team conducted thorough discovery sessions, producing detailed architecture diagrams, data replication strategies, and failover procedures. Infrastructure was deployed across multiple AWS regions using Infrastructure-as-Code via Serverless Framework: identical Lambda functions in both regions, S3 buckets with cross-region replication, DynamoDB Global Tables with bidirectional replication, and synchronized Cognito user pools with seamless authentication.
  2. 2

    Real-Time Data Replication

    Configured comprehensive data synchronization: DynamoDB Global Tables with conflict resolution and replication lag under 1 second, S3 cross-region replication with versioning protection, and Cognito user pool migration strategy for seamless failover authentication.
  3. 3

    Automated Failover & Monitoring

    Implemented automated failover, eliminating manual intervention: Route 53 health checks monitoring primary region with automatic DNS failover to DR region, appropriate TTL values for rapid DNS propagation, Lambda auto-scaling with CloudWatch alarms, and automated scaling handling traffic spikes during failover.
  4. 4

    CI/CD Pipeline & Documentation

    Created Bitbucket CI/CD pipelines for automated parallel deployment to both regions with a blue-green deployment strategy. Developed comprehensive DR runbooks with step-by-step failover procedures, rollback processes, troubleshooting guides, and operational documentation, including architecture diagrams and configuration management.
  5. 5

    Testing & Validation

    Conducted rigorous testing, including controlled failover scenarios validating RTO and RPO targets, load testing DR region infrastructure under peak conditions, and runbook walk-throughs with the operations team. Testing confirmed that actual performance significantly exceeded targets.

Results and Impact

Before:

No formal DR capabilities, potential 48-72 hours of downtime during regional outages, potential data loss spanning days, manual recovery with high uncertainty, a single region creating a single point of failure.

After:

Automated failover with RTO < 1 hour (target 24h), continuous replication with RPO < 1 minute (target 12h), 100% infrastructure redundancy across regions, comprehensive documented procedures, HIPAA-level security maintained, serverless architecture eliminating idle costs.

Quantitative Outcomes

  • ~95% faster recovery: RTO < 1 hour vs. 24h target through automated health-check failover

  • ~99% faster data protection: RPO < 1 minute vs. 12h target through real-time replication

  • 100% infrastructure redundancy: All critical components replicated across multiple regions

  • 100% automation: Zero manual intervention required for failover

  • <2 months delivery: Complete solution with 2-person team

Qualitative Outcomes

  • Dramatically improved organizational confidence in disaster scenarios with enhanced client trust. Transformed from reactive manual recovery to proactive automated failover with repeatable documented procedures. The client operations team gained DR expertise with comprehensive documentation, enabling self-sufficiency. Formal DR capabilities now differentiate the client in enterprise RFPs and sales conversations.

Validation: Testing confirmed successful controlled failover scenarios with minimal disruption, validated automated DNS failover and traffic routing, confirmed data consistency across regions, and verified no data loss during complete failover/failback cycles.

Key Learnings

  • Serverless architecture is essential for cost-effective DR.

    Fully managed AWS services eliminated maintain duplicate provisioned infrastructure with automatic scaling handling production loads during failover without capacity planning.

  • Multi-region design from inception creates inherent resilience.

    Deploying identical infrastructure across regions from the beginning prevented architectural drift and enabled testing without affecting production.

Next Steps

  1. 1

    Expand Geographic Coverage & Enhanced Monitoring

    Evaluate additional AWS regions for further risk distribution and improved global latency. Implement advanced anomaly detection using CloudWatch Insights with predictive alerting, identifying issues before outages. Develop comprehensive real-time visibility dashboards for DR environment health.
  2. 2

    Establish Regular Testing & Optimization

    Implement a quarterly DR drill schedule, conducting live failover exercises to validate procedures and maintain team readiness. Measure and report RTO/RPO actuals during each drill. Continuously refine runbooks and optimize performance through ongoing tuning of replication lag patterns and Lambda configurations.

Conclusion

The DR implementation represents a transformational milestone in the client’s operational maturity and business resilience. By partnering with Matoffo to deploy a comprehensive serverless DR solution from scratch, the assessment platform successfully addressed critical business continuity risks while establishing a foundation for future growth.

The project fundamentally changed how the organization approaches reliability and resilience. What began as a concerning business continuity gap evolved into a robust, tested, documented DR posture providing confidence to executive leadership, operations teams, and customers. The transformation from manual, uncertain recovery to automated health-check-driven failover eliminated human error and reduced recovery time from potentially days to under 1 hour.

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