A backup job can finish successfully without answering the question that matters to your business: can we get back to work? Recovery testing should check both the data you recover and the steps needed to use it.
Decide what needs to come back first
List the files, applications, and systems your team relies on. For each one, decide how much recent work you could afford to lose and how long you could operate without it. Those are business requirements to discuss with your IT provider, not assumptions to leave until an outage.
Ask for a controlled restore test
Have the person responsible for backups restore selected files or a representative system into a separate test location. Avoid overwriting live information. Ask a business owner of that data to check that files open, expected records exist, and the recovered information is useful. Application recovery may also depend on licensing, configuration, credentials, and other services.
Protect the backup as well as the original
CISA recommends offline, encrypted backups and regular recovery testing. Ask how your backup design keeps protected copies out of reach of a compromised production account, and who can change retention or delete copies. See CISA’s StopRansomware Guide.
Keep a short test record
- What was restored and which backup date was used.
- How long recovery took and what dependencies were needed.
- Who checked that the recovered data worked.
- Any failures, the person responsible for fixing them, and the retest date.
Repeat tests on an agreed schedule and after significant changes. Include cloud applications in the review: confirm what your subscription retains and whether that matches your recovery requirements.
Know what to ask next
Start with: “When did we last restore our important data, and what did the test show?” If the answer is unclear, talk with MEC about your backup and recovery needs.