Backup and Recovery Test

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What Does Backup and Recovery Test Mean?

A backup and recovery test is a process used to make sure that a backup and recovery plan will work the way it is supposed to after a real emergency. This kind of testing can involve many different types of analysis, from basic file recovery tests to detailed scenario testing.

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Techopedia Explains Backup and Recovery Test

Businesses invest a lot of money and effort into data backup and recovery plans for simple user events, as well as emergency events like natural disasters. However, without adequate testing, it’s hard to know whether any backup and recovery plan will work. Testing, in some senses, completes the circle when it comes to preparing for natural disasters or other crises.

Ideally, companies should be able to test their actual live systems for correct backup and recovery functionality. However, this kind of testing, which is sometimes called "live testing" or "interruption testing," can be intrusive and hard to complete. Sometimes, a company can set up dummy systems, although experts caution against simply testing "like environments" and not actually analyzing the backup and recovery systems themselves.

In terms of the actual work done in backup and recovery tests, executives or other leaders can plan general testing such as scenario-based operations testing and testing for backup power sources. In terms of actually testing IT systems for backup and recovery, these tests may be as diverse as simulating the loss of simple data files or an entire server; looking at backup processes for operating systems, databases and applications; or testing failback and failover processes and looking for accurate IT responses to a range of events.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.