DR testing isn’t just another checkbox on your IT to-do list – it’s your insurance policy against disaster. Having spent decades in the backup and recovery world, I’ve seen too many organizations learn this lesson the hard way. Let me share what really works when it comes to testing your disaster recovery capabilities.
This blog post summarizes the main points of my latest podcast episode. If you’d like, you can listen to it or watch it at https://www.backupwrapup.com/)
Starting Small with DR Testing
The first rule of DR testing is simple: don’t blow up your production environment. Seriously. I’ve heard horror stories of admins who decided to test their DR by deliberately taking down production systems. Don’t be that person. Instead, start with simple, non-destructive tests of individual components.
Building Your DR Testing Strategy
Begin with basic restore testing – maybe a single directory or database. Once you’re comfortable with that, move up to testing entire server recoveries. The key is to verify each piece of your infrastructure separately before attempting full-scale DR scenarios.
DR Testing Success Criteria
Before you start any DR test, you need clear success criteria. Your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) should drive these criteria. But if you’re just starting out, keep your expectations realistic. Remember – no one dies, no fires start, and no one quits. Those are solid initial success criteria for your first DR test.
Testing Different Infrastructure Types
Modern environments typically include multiple infrastructure types:
- Physical servers
- Virtual machines
- Cloud infrastructure
- SaaS applications
Each requires its own testing approach. For example, testing recovery of a VMware virtual machine is very different from testing a cloud-based workload or a SaaS application backup.
Non-Destructive Testing Methods
The beauty of cloud infrastructure is that it lets you test DR without risking your production environment. You can spin up resources when needed and tear them down when done. This makes it perfect for DR testing – you get all the benefits without the risks or permanent infrastructure costs.
Documentation and Runbooks
Your DR testing process needs solid documentation. Create detailed runbooks and – this is crucial – have someone other than your primary admin test them. At my old bank job, we always had someone else follow the runbook because we needed to verify that recovery was possible even if I “got hit by a bus” (they never used nice scenarios like winning the lottery).
Real World DR Testing Lessons
One of my earliest DR tests taught me a valuable lesson about testing before you need it. I had implemented a new backup system with compression, but hadn’t tested the restore process. When we needed to recover a critical file server, we discovered that the restore process was painfully slow due to how the compression worked. Thankfully, I had my old backup tapes as a fallback.
Remember: DR testing isn’t about proving your backup system works – it’s about building confidence in your ability to recover when things go wrong. Start small, document everything, and gradually build up to more complex scenarios. Your future self will thank you when a real disaster strikes.
Written by W. Curtis Preston (@wcpreston), four-time O'Reilly author, and host of The Backup Wrap-up podcast. I am now the Technology Evangelist at S2|DATA, which helps companies manage their legacy data
