Test your backups regularly
An organization is only as good as its last backup. The last thing you want is to think your backups are solid only to find out during a fire, natural disaster or ransomware attack that they’ve failed — leading to lost productivity and profits.
We talked in tip #11 about how important it is to test your data backup plan, but it’s also vital to test the backups themselves.
Next steps
- Don’t stop at just creating a backup: Make sure backups are being tested and your organization can get back to normal on those backups. Going above and beyond in test scenarios will help alleviate headaches if a worst-case scenario arises.
- Create a plan for when you are going to test the backups: Quarterly testing is a good place to start, but ideally it should be more frequent. The process will become easier and require less manpower after a few tests.
Include as many people as possible while testing those backups: This will help avoid being single threaded with a key resource. You don’t want to have only one person who knows how to do a full restore and then have them out sick or on vacation during an emergency.
SOURCE: WIPFLI