A successful backup job is evidence that data was copied; it is not proof that the business can recover. Readiness depends on agreed recovery objectives, protected backup copies, tested restoration procedures and people who know what to do during an incident.
Define the recovery requirement
- Identify business-critical systems and their owners
- Set recovery time and recovery point objectives for each priority workload
- Map application dependencies and the order of recovery
- Record acceptable data loss and downtime in business terms
Review backup operations
- Confirm backup scope matches the current asset inventory
- Review failed, missed and unusually small backup jobs
- Check retention policies against business and compliance needs
- Protect administrative access to backup infrastructure
Test the recovery path
- Run representative file, database and system-level restores
- Validate restored data with the relevant business owner
- Measure actual recovery time against the stated objective
- Update runbooks after every exercise
Prepare for disruption
- Keep recovery documentation available outside the primary environment
- Define decision-makers and communications paths
- Review storage capacity and off-site protection
- Schedule the next test before closing the current review