Multi-region resilience
Learn about multi-region deployment and choose the right strategy for your recovery and resilience needs.
Camunda provides a structured multi-region resilience framework for Self-Managed Orchestration Cluster deployments.
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Cold Recovery: Camunda's lowest-cost multi-region configuration uses scheduled cross-region backups and a manual restore procedure to recover from complete primary-region loss. Recovery measured in hours is operationally acceptable.
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Dual-Region: Dual-region deployment with continuous replication. A full Camunda Orchestration Cluster runs continuously in both a primary and secondary region.
Get started: Choose your strategy
Choosing the right recovery strategy is determined by how critical your process automation is to your business. How much downtime and data loss can you tolerate, and what compliance obligations do you have?
First, determine how critical your workload is:
| If your business can tolerate the following: | Choose this option |
|---|---|
| Recovery measured in hours, and minutes to hours of data loss. | Cold Recovery |
| Recovery in ~15 minutes, with no data loss, and audit-ready posture. | Dual-Region |
Dual-Region includes a reference architecture and operational runbook with documented Recovery Time Objective (RTO)Recovery Time Objective (RTO)Multi-region resilience: Maximum tolerable time from failure detection to service restoration in a functional state. and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)Recovery Point Objective (RPO)Multi-region resilience: Maximum tolerable amount of data loss, measured as the time between the last persisted consistent backup and the moment of failure. targets. Cold Recovery is a manual procedure built on the backup and restore guide; validate it in your environment.
Comparison of multi-region resilience
The following table provides a detailed comparison of the available multi-region deployment options:
| Consideration | Cold Recovery | Dual-Region |
|---|---|---|
| Recovery time (RTO) | ~1–4 hours | ~15 minutes |
| Data loss (RPO) | 15 min – 4 hours (backup-interval dependent) | 0 minutes |
| Failover mode | Manual, operator-initiated | Manual, operator-initiated |
| Architecture | Scheduled backup to cross-region object storage; manual restore into a secondary region | Orchestration Cluster running in both regions; dual-region exporters; manual failover |
| Typical use case | Low-criticality production; environments where hours-long recovery is acceptable | Enterprise production workloads that must survive a region failure |
| Compliance fit | Basic business continuity management (BCM) requirements | Certified, auditable region-recovery posture with a published runbook |
| Relative cost | $ (lower cost): Object storage only; no standing second region | $$$ (higher cost): Orchestration Cluster running across both regions with extra capacity to sustain load in case of Region failure, plus cross-region traffic |
Cold Recovery RTO and RPO targets are bounded by data volume, backup frequency, and operator restore speed. Treat published ranges as planning targets, not contractual commitments.
Dual-Region RTO is based on internal operational tests. Actual times may vary depending on your environment, level of automation and the specific manual steps performed during recovery. See Dual-Region for a phase-by-phase breakdown.