UIT Annual Disaster Recovery Exercise

The Annual UIT Disaster Recovery Exercise validates the university’s ability to recover and sustain critical technology services in the event that primary infrastructure at the historical campus becomes inaccessible or inoperable.

Each year, participating UIT enterprise services fail over critical systems and functions to cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) environments to validate recovery capabilities, operational coordination, and continuity of critical business services under simulated outage conditions.

Exercise Objectives

• Validate recovery capabilities for critical UIT enterprise services
• Measure recovery performance against established Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs)
• Test operational coordination and continuity of critical business services
• Identify resiliency gaps, dependencies, and opportunities for improvement
• Strengthen alignment between technical recovery capabilities and organizational expectations

Exercise Structure

• Participating services fail over critical systems and functions to cloud-based DR environments
• Recovery activities are conducted remotely by distributed teams
• Preparation activities begin months in advance and include planning meetings, documentation reviews, and complementary performance testing
• A dedicated Slack channel is used for exercise coordination and ongoing collaboration
• Contingency time is reserved the morning following the exercise if extended recovery activities are needed

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is a key performance indicator for the exercise and includes:

• Technical recovery and validation activities
• Business-level validation and testing

These components are measured separately and combined to determine the overall recovery objective.

Reporting and Continuous Improvement

• A formal after-action report is completed within 14 calendar days of the exercise
• Results include recovery performance, lessons learned, and identified improvement opportunities
• UIT continuously evaluates opportunities to strengthen resiliency and improve the operational value of the annual exercise

The Annual UIT Disaster Recovery Exercise is a foundational component of UIT’s resiliency program and reflects an ongoing commitment to operational readiness, service continuity, and continuous improvement. Through coordinated planning, recovery validation, and post-exercise analysis, UIT strengthens its ability to sustain critical technology services during disruptive events and better support the university community.

Planning Resources

Please refer to the Annual Disaster Recovery Exercise: Preparation Overview for the key areas service owners are expected to review and validate in advance of the annual exercise.

Upcoming

The 2026 DR Exercise is scheduled for October 16, 2026.

Recent

Note: Annual Disaster Recovery Exercise results are viewable to UIT only.