recoverability

Recoverability is the ability of a system, component, or process to restore to a defined operating state after a disruption such as a failure, error, or disaster. It encompasses restoring functionality, data integrity, and service levels. Recoverability is a key consideration in reliability engineering, software design, and IT operations, and it intersects with business continuity and disaster recovery planning.

In computing and data management, recoverability describes the mechanisms and procedures that allow a system to return to a consistent state after a crash or outage. This includes maintaining durable data, write-ahead logging, checkpoints, and the ability to replay or undo operations to reconstruct a correct state. In databases, recoverability relates to transaction processing and ACID properties, ensuring the system can recover to a state consistent with committed transactions.

Planning for recoverability involves setting objectives such as recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO), and choosing strategies like backups, replication, redundancy, and failover. The expected speed and completeness of recovery are measured by metrics such as mean time to recover (MTTR) and the probability of successful restoration within the target window.

Common approaches include regular backups, offsite or cloud replication, redundant power and network paths, and fault-tolerant architectures. Testing recovery procedures through drills and tabletop exercises is essential to validate recoverability. Challenges include data growth, evolving architectures, and maintaining data integrity across components during restoration.