23 years
97.9 Customer Satisfaction Score
200k Tickets Closed
83% resolved remotely
97% Resolved within SLA Goal

When Was the Last Time You Tested Your Backup?

If you are backing up your data regularly, you are on track with your data protection, but that is not enough.  You are also doing well if you are ensuring that your backups are safe, but you need to do more than that.

What is the use of all these efforts if you cannot retrieve the data when you need it? That may come as a shock to you, but it happens often. Most organizations are quick to back up and secure their backups, but they hardly test the backups and data recovery.

If you fail to test your backup and data recovery (DR) regularly, you have no assurance that it is still there and that you can recover it if you lose the data in your systems. Maybe you are not sure of why you may need the backup data. Let us briefly delve into that.

Why You Need to Backup

Protection against Physical Disasters

You may lose your data in times of disasters like floods, earth tremors, and tornados. You may also lose it through lost devices such as laptops and external drives. In addition, your system hardware may malfunction, leaving you unable to access your data.

Hackers and Viruses

Old school techniques like spyware, viruses, and dangerous malware are still causing massive data losses and system breaches. The threat to your data and systems is now even higher with the recent explosion of cybercrimes and malware.

Recent trends indicate that no organization is 100% safe from cyberattacks. You will experience it one time or the other. That should tell you that you need reliable data recovery mechanisms to shield you from complete data loss or prolonged downtimes.

You can only be sure that you have data you can restore by carrying out frequent backup and recovery drills. Let us explore the things you should bear in mind when carrying out your backup testing and data recovery simulations.

What Should You Test?

Test if you can recover your folders, files and volumes. Test if you can recover all the data in case of a total system failure. Sometimes you may take longer to restore your IT systems if they fail.

Test if you can recover parts of the data you may need to use as you await the systems to be restored. In addition, test if your IT team can recover your data stored in the cloud, in software-as-a-service (SaaS), and those held offsite.

Frequency of Testing

How often you will test your backup and data recovery will depend on the sensitivity of the data and how much risk you are willing to take. If the data is sensitive and important, weekly testing would be appropriate. Monthly testing would be ideal for less sensitive data.

Some organizations carry out annual testing and data recovery drills, but that may not be enough. A lot of interference may happen within the year. You should also do a test and DR every time you have a system upgrade or change.

Ability to Recover the Data

Once you are sure your physical systems can restore your data, the next thing is to test if the data you have recovered is not corrupted. Test if you can recover large volumes of data under Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) conditions.

Testing will reveal if you meet regulatory requirements on data backup and recovery. It will show if you meet your recovery time objectives (RTO) which indicate fast you need to restore your systems. Testing will also show you recovery point objectives (RPO), showing how much data you can lose without affecting your operations.

The Effectiveness and Accuracy of the Data Recovery

Your testing and DR should go beyond telling you that you can recover your data. It should show if the data is recovered in the appropriate systems and that the recovered data is not interfered with in the recovery process.

Subject matter specialists from your organization should scrutinize the recovered data for accuracy and see if it is in the correct order. Mixing up the data may compromise its quality and accuracy.

When testing data recovery from offsite backups, check if your systems are protected from ransomware. This would be a perfect time to update your cybersecurity features to secure the data when carrying out a backup and DR drill.

Consistency of Recovery

When you do a backup and DR drill, you will know if the recovery is consistent across all departments. It will tell you if there is a department that is not effectively backing up its data. In addition, you will know if you can recover data from all your backup sites and devices consistently.

Expect the backup and DR drill to disrupt operations. Make it correspond with the time when your systems are not busy or on your off days.

Also, it should be a worthy investment from which you can draw lessons to inform future backup and recovery decisions. Record the findings and act on them to improve your data backup and recovery.

Your Backup and DR Team

The success of your backup and DR drill will depend on the team you assemble. You need a blend of insiders and outsourced IT service providers like Palindrome Consulting. The outsourced IT team will evaluate how well your employees are following your backup policy and test the efficiency of your backup systems.

They may have more knowledge on data backup and recovery solutions since they are likely to be offering their services to many firms that give them wider exposure than an in-house team can have. On the other hand, the in-house team should help in evaluating the data accuracy and consistency. They may include a business continuity expert, a business unit advisor, and a disaster management coordinator.

Palindrome Consulting is your go-to IT consultant for businesses in South Florida. We specialize in helping businesses reap full benefits from their IT investments to get a competitive edge and achieve greater success.

Get in touch with us for a tailored IT solution that will align with your business projections and policies. We are available for on-site consultation where we visit your premises to discuss your IT needs. Call us or reach out to us on our website for a free quote.

Schedule your No-Obligation IT Assessment with Palindrome Consulting

Schedule Now

Elizabeth Mitrani
Elizabeth Mitrani
17:23 06 Aug 19
Palindrome Consulting was key in establishing my business and helps me keep it running. They are the consummate... professionals, incredibly knowledgeable and are always available to help. They have gone above and beyond to ensure that I was up and running quickly and that any issues that may arise on my end or dealt with immediately. I highly recommend Palindrome Consulting.read more
Moshe Rubinstein
Moshe Rubinstein
14:57 28 Jun 19
They are there every step of the way. Responsive and timely. The full service mentality mixed with the problem solving... abilities, is what makes them an easy choice.read more
Benjamin Wainberg
Benjamin Wainberg
14:09 28 Jun 19
Palindrome Consulting is customer centric. For Palindrome Data Safety is paramount; they keep their and our systems... updated with the newest technologies and are not shy at changing to better alternatives. Their platforms are always running and in the odd case there is an event, their technical team has an awesome response time.read more
Copier Man
Copier Man
13:56 28 Jun 19
We have been using Palindrome since 2005. They make my company feel like we are #1 all the time. Expert staff are... always available to help all my users all around the country.read more
Martin Feldman
Martin Feldman
16:43 26 Jun 19
As a partner in Fischer & Feldman, P.A. we have utilized Palindrome Consulting as our IT experts for many years. In... addition to keeping our server up and running, they are available to consult on the everchanging cloud and web landscape. We could not function as a successful law firm without their constant care, attention and almost IMMEDIATE RESPONSE TIME.read more
Rebecca Fischer
Rebecca Fischer
16:39 26 Jun 19
Palindrome has been my IT company for more than 15 years. We have been through four server and computer replacements... over the years all of which went smoothly. As technology has changed Palindrome has kept us current in their recommendations and are extremely responsive when we run into a software or hardware problem. We have been through hurricanes with Palindrome and felt confident they would have us up and running as quickly as possible and despite the fact we are probably a smaller client, they have treated us as one of their most important clients. I highly recommend Palindrome and have complete confidence in their capabilities and service. They have even gone the extra mile when we wanted to donate our old computers to a children's special needs school and delivered the computers, set them up and provided service for the same. Ilan Sredni is the consummate professional and has surrounded himself with top professionals and skilled technicians.read more
Nelson T
Nelson T
20:32 25 Jun 19
Palindrome Consulting has proven itself time and time again to be the epitome of professionalism and technical... expertise. They take the time to listen to your needs and then apply their wealth of technical knowledge to create truly innovative and robust solutions. They truly deliver piece of mind.read more
Next Reviews
js_loader