Every major enterprise has a cloud disaster recovery plan–not news. What is news? Most of them are disasters. Or, at least half a disaster…
And half a disaster is still a disaster.
Why?Â
Because most enterprise DR plans are incomplete. Right now, even the most sophisticated cloud teams are probably skipping something critical. They’ve meticulously backed-up their data, but have left the infrastructure that runs it completely exposed.
And in today’s hyper-complex, multi-cloud, drowning-in-AI reality, that’s a risk not just to cloud infra, but to any enterprise initiative relying on it.
The Other Half of the ProblemÂ
When your infrastructure disappears—whether from accidental deletion, attack, or failure—all that data, data, data is useless. It’s like saving your furniture while the house burns down. Where, exactly, do you plan to put that sofa?
Don’t get me wrong: data is important. But what happens when your infra is gone? What’s running that perfectly restored data? Who’s protecting your network architecture? Your load balancer configurations? Your CDN settings? Your DNS records? Short answer: nobody.
Not convinced? Read this. It’s not an isolated incident–it happens regularly across the cloud infra world (maybe not at the same scale) as teams discover too late their DR plans have an infra-sized hole. And, as cloud complexity accelerates, it’s only going to widen, and swallow more time, energy, resources and initiatives.
You can’t back-up what you can’t see
Now, you may be thinking: “We use Infrastructure-as-Code. Our infrastructure is already documented.” Thing is, even cloud teams diligently using gold-standard IaC have blind spots. You already know the code rarely matches your actual cloud resources perfectly. Teams make emergency hotfixes directly in the console; shadow IT creates resources outside governance. Configurations drift like continental plates… slowly, invisibly, but with devastating force when they collide with reality. (Trust me, I’ve been there.)
Put simply: you don’t know what you don’t know. More to the point: you can’t rebuild what you can’t see.
Let’s make all this concrete: if only 20% of your cloud is properly represented in your infra code—a common enterprise scenario—then out of five resources deleted, four of them can’t be restored accurately. Each missing resource represents:
- Hours of recovery time
- Missed SLAs
- Customers who are definitely not happy
- Angry CIO (and probably more of the c-suite)
- Potential compliance violations
And for those who’ve turned to proprietary cloud disaster recovery solutions? That’s a whole other problem. Especially for governance. These tools lock you into their ecosystem, requiring specialized knowledge, forcing you to reinvent workflows, and adding complexity at every turn. So when recovery needs to happen fast–when doesn’t it?–the very last thing you need is another proprietary system to navigate.
All of this is not cloud teams’ fault—it’s an industry-wide blind spot. The DR Conversion has stagnated, and so has innovation. Until today.
Introducing ControlMonkey’s infrastructure Disaster Recovery
Infrastructure Disaster Recovery (IDR) transforms backup from a risk mitigation checkbox into a strategic asset. Instead of scrambling to rebuild configurations in the middle of a disaster (while your CEO is asking why systems are still down), infrastructure should be automatically documented, in a format your team already knows how to deploy.
That’s why ControlMonkey’s IDR doesn’t add another proprietary point tool to your tech stack. Good IDR means treating infra backup as the open-source foundation that makes all other DR investments viable, and using gold-standard Infrastructure-as-Code as its backbone. So, IaC is the backbone of our solution, too. This approach eliminates vendor lock-in and leverages your team’s existing skills and workflows. That’s just good governance.
How ControlMonkey’s IDR Works.
It starts with comprehensive daily snapshots of your entire cloud configuration—not just the portions you’ve explicitly defined in IaC. It all gets captured: compute instances, configurations, networking settings, security policies, IAM roles, DNS settings, CDN configurations–ev-ery-thing. Nothing can slip through the cracks, so nothing does.
After that, it’s kinda magic…
- Captured config is automatically transformed into Infrastructure as Code—standard Terraform that your team already knows—and pushed directly to your own Git repository. Not our proprietary system. Your repository. You own it. It lives right alongside your existing code.
- This creates a “Time Machine” view of your cloud. Need to see how a specific resource was configured two days ago? With a single click, you can find any resource and see its complete configuration history.Â
- Research your backup without restoring it–the most revolutionary part. Unlike most approaches where you have to restore just to see what’s inside (consuming resources you don’t have), ControlMonkey’s IDR lets you browse and verify configs, no changes needed.
- Big finish: One click recovery. One click restores your entire cloud environment to its last good state. No scrambling, no partial recoveries, no crossed fingers. Just reliable, predictable recovery…every time.
This isn’t theoretical—it’s a real, shipping product, starting today. And it’s the difference between meeting your SLAs or explaining to your boss why you’re still down days after an incident. ControlMonkey’s IDR ushers in a world where infrastructure delivery isn’t a scramble, but a science. This is Total Cloud Control.
The Next Step in the Revolution
The Infrastructure Delivery Revolution is transforming how enterprises scale, automate and govern the cloud. Now the revolution has reached cloud disaster recovery.
The shift from traditional DR to Infrastructure Disaster Recovery transforms cloud teams in a few important ways:
- From perpetual firefighters to strategic innovators
- From reactive to proactive
- From hoping systems come back to knowing exactly when they will
- From periodic compliance check to continuous compliance
The business metrics tell the story: With traditional DR approaches might take days. IDR happens in minutes—reducing recovery time by up to 90%. What’s the value of meeting your RTO and RPO targets every time? Versus cost of failing to meet them even once? How do you put a value on meeting the SLA you promised to customers?
ControlMonkey’s IDR doesn’t just save time during a crisis—it fundamentally changes the risk profile of your entire cloud operation. And in today’s risk-heavy landscape, that’s a competitive advantage we’re thrilled to offer our partners.
Will You be Ready?
Every CIO, CISO, and cloud leader needs to take an honest look at their DR strategy and ask the uncomfortable question: if we lost our cloud infra tomorrow—all of it—how quickly and accurately could we rebuild it?
For most enterprises, the honest answer is disturbing. I’ll leave it at that.
IDR isn’t just another feature to add to your cloud toolbox—it’s the foundation that makes everything else possible. Without it, you’re building a cloud disaster recovery strategy on sand. And in 2025, with AI workloads driving unprecedented cloud strain and complexity, that foundation had better be solid.
The time to fix your disaster recovery strategy isn’t after a disaster. It’s now, before that inevitable misconfiguration, accidental deletion, or attack—before your infra is gone. The stakes are too high, and the solution is too straightforward to ignore.
We’re making it easy with the IDR solution we’re announcing today–so there’s no excuse. Still not convinced? Schedule a demo and see how we make recovery predictable, instant, and effortless. Your future self will thank you.
