SEBI proposes easier disaster recovery testing framework, non-working day drills at exchanges

According to fresh market updates, Markets regulator SEBI has proposed changes to the business continuity and disaster recovery (BCP/DR) framework for market infrastructure institutions (MIIs), including bourses, clearing corporations and depositories, to improve operational resilience and make disaster recovery testing easier.

Under the proposal, MIIs would conduct DR drills on non-working days, starting operations at the primary data centre (PDC) and switching them to the disaster recovery site (DRS). The overall drill would have to run for at least four hours, including the switchover. MIIs would still be required to cover all market-operation scenarios and simulate real-life loads and participation close to actual marks.

The proposal follows representations from bourses, particularly those with commodity derivatives segments, where trading in certain products extends until 11:55 pm. Conducting a full-day DR drill in such markets can be cumbersome for both MIIs and traders at large.

MIIs would additionally have to test disruption scenarios specific to their architecture and line of business, with the comprehensive list of scenarios reviewed by the Standing Committee on Technology of the exchange concerned.

SEBI has additionally proposed comprehensive stress and mock testing at PDCs, covering transaction volumes and orders per second as well as master data, database and table sizes and other non-transactional components. MIIs would additionally regularly test fault tolerance to ensure redundant switches, servers and other components automatically take over when a component fails.

They would have to proactively identify and monitor system boundary conditions and upper limits, strengthen application-level error logging and prepare ready reckoner for interpreting errors to speed up troubleshooting.

The regulator has additionally proposed periodic tests and alerts to ensure IT configurations across the PDC, near site and DRS stay aligned and prevent configuration drift.

For bourses, SEBI has proposed a framework to recover lost trade data from clearing corporations if disruptions affect replication at both the near site and DRS. Exchanges and clearing corporations would have to establish standard operating procedures for such recovery.

Public comments have been invited until October 5, 2026.