\"backup\" and disaster recovery instead of \"failover\"

We are deploying Enterprise distibuted App manager but are looking to reduce the need for additional servers for "failover" by investigating "Disaster recovery" processes such as "configuration and Database back up" in the event of a hardware or software failure. Is there a simple procedure as to what files to save to a backup for this purpose. We currently have processes in place that we could leverage to perform backups so this would be ideal instead of having additional hardware and network resources.
kevin lane