Imagine having a data backup and disaster recovery solution, thinking you’re prepared to handle anything that comes your way. Then disaster strikes and recovery is impossible. Testing your disaster recovery solution beforehand could have prevented this misstep entirely. What kind of disasters need to be prepared for, and how can you make sure your testing takes them into account?
What Kind of Disasters Do You Need to Prepare For?
First, you’ll need to outline the disasters that you should be prepared for. These scenarios highlight why disaster recovery testing needs to include all possible failure points, from human error to malware to natural disasters.
- User Error: Everyone makes mistakes, and the results vary wildly from minor inconveniences to major problems that affect multiple users. Accidental deletions, shadow IT, and similar issues can put your business at serious risk if you aren’t prepared.
- Key Staff Unavailability: What if someone with key access is suddenly unavailable due to an emergency or accident? If this access is exclusive, your business could be placed in a precarious situation.
- Equipment Failure: Most modern businesses rely heavily on technology of some sort, and that technology requires an infrastructure. If these were to fail, what would you do? System failures can interrupt important processes and procedures.
- Malware: Malware is a constant threat to businesses, and it has evolved over the years to become a force to be reckoned with. Considering how many different ways there are for hackers to initiate threats, you need to be vigilant at all times to avoid it from becoming an issue.
- Natural Disasters: Most businesses fear natural disasters of certain types, and it’s largely due to their geographic location. Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, electrical storms… these are all risks that businesses need to consider when planning out their disaster recovery plan. While not all organizations will be susceptible to the same types of disasters, they all need to have a plan to address the specific situations they might find themselves in.
- The Unexpected: Some scenarios are impossible to imagine, so it’s best to simply prepare for anything.
How to Be Sure You’re Properly Prepared
When it comes to preparing and evaluating your disaster recovery testing strategy, regularly review your strategy to ensure its effectiveness. You need to make a routine out of it so that the plan can be administered in a moment’s notice. Malware, natural disasters, and other threats aren’t going to wait until you’re prepared, so take time to evaluate your processes and ensure your employees are aware of them, too. This is where disaster recovery testing becomes invaluable.
Design your testing to evaluate both the technical recovery process and your team’s ability to execute it. As you collect data from these tests, you need to update the plan and resolve any issues your tests uncover. There is no room for error in your recovery tests, as the future of your business depends on it.
Tests to Run
Here are some of the types of backup tests that you should administer on a semi-regular basis:
- Walkthrough Test: This is simply a basic review of the plan, reading it over to ensure that everyone involved remains updated to any possible changes that may have been made.
- Tabletop Test: Similar to a tabletop game, someone from each department comes in and is given a hypothetical disaster scenario. Each team member should explain what they would do in their given scenario. This is useful in revealing possible shortcomings in a business’ existing strategy.
- Parallel Test: Checks how well restoration works using a virtual machine alongside your live system.
- Full Interruption Testing: This test is one of the most in-depth, but also the most risk-laden, as it could lead to actual downtime. Some industries prohibit this test, so confirm with your IT provider before proceeding.
Disaster recovery testing is such an important part of business that you can’t take any chances with it.
