How Often Should You Test Your Data Restore Process?

Cyber-attacks are growing increasingly common, with it being estimated that a cyber-attack occurs every 39 seconds. In an increasingly digital world, it is then essential that businesses take steps to protect themselves against data loss in the event of a cyber-attack, natural disaster, or hardware failure by performing regular data backups. Having a solid disaster recovery plan in place can be essential in minimizing downtime and helping your business get back on its feet should a data loss event occur.

Yet, performing regular backups is just one part of an effective backup and recovery plan. You also need to test your data restore process regularly to ensure that it is effective. Unfortunately, many businesses underestimate the importance of testing their data recovery process and think that their data is safe as long as they perform regular backups. The fact is that you won’t know if your recovery process even works without regular data restore testing, and the last thing that you want is to encounter an incident resulting in data loss only to discover that your files won’t restore.

Of course, if you’ve never even tested your data restore process, you may find yourself wondering how often you should be running these tests, and why they’re necessary. To ensure that you can regain access to your data in the event of an emergency, keep reading to learn more about the importance of data backup testing and how often you should be performing these tests.

Why Data Restore Testing is Important

We often talk to companies that believe backing up their hard drive to the cloud, or taking snapshots of their servers, is enough to safeguard their data. However, if you do not test your data recovery process, there’s no assurance that it will work should you need to restore data following a cyber-attack. Testing your backup and recovery plan on a regular basis is crucial, as it can help ensure that you can effectively recover critical data in the event of a disaster by helping you identify potential issues like corrupted backups, inaccessible data, or slow recovery times before a real crisis occurs.

Here’s a look at just a few of the reasons why regular data restore testing should be an integral component of your data loss prevention plan:

Ensure Your Data Recovery Process Works

The most important reason to test your data recovery process is to ensure that it actually works. Unless you try recovering your data, you’ll have no idea if your data backed up properly until a disaster occurs; and as life tends to go, your restore will likely fail when you need it most. Testing your data recovery process can then give you peace of mind by confirming that your backups are complete and contain accurate data that can be successfully restored. Unless you test your backups, you risk permanent data loss should a disaster occur, and your backups turn out to be corrupted or incomplete.

Catch Problems Early

The fact is that technology can be unpredictable, and you may find that your backups are corrupted or incomplete when you go to restore them. While this could spell disaster during an actual emergency, regular data recovery testing can allow you to catch problems early and update/repair your backups before it’s too late.

Ensure Fast Data Recovery

Should an emergency occur and you lose access to your data, the longer it takes to restore your data, and the more expensive things become for your business. The fact is that downtime can quickly become costly for your business; yet, if you’ve never tested your data recovery process, restoring your data could take a while as your team may be unsure how the process works.

By regularly testing your data restore process, you will ensure that your team knows what their role is in a disaster scenario. This can greatly improve recovery times, ensuring that your team is able to restore operations quickly in an emergency.

Common Reasons Companies Don’t Test Their Restore Process

Having a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place is essential to ensure that you can quickly restore your data in the event of a disaster. Yet, if you do not test your restore process regularly, you run a very high risk of the recovery not working. Unfortunately, many businesses back up their data regularly without testing their data recovery plan, usually because they may find this process to be inconvenient and time-consuming. However, think about how much time and money a failed restore could cost your organization. While working data restore testing into your weekly schedule may seem like a hassle, it will save you time and money in the long run.

How Often Should You Test Your Data Recovery Process?

Considering how important data recovery testing is, you may find yourself wondering how often you should test your data restore process; however, this will depend on a number of factors. While most experts recommend that you perform a full data recovery test at least once a year, certain assets may need to be tested on a monthly, or even weekly basis. Factors that you should consider when determining how often to perform data recovery tests include:

Data Criticality

One of the most important factors to consider when planning the frequency of your data recovery tests is the criticality of the data in your backups. For instance, mission-critical systems that you will need to be able to access quickly in an emergency situation should be checked more frequently due to the vital role they play in your organization. Testing this data on a weekly or monthly basis will ensure that your business is able to recover quickly following a data loss.

Industry Regulations

How often you’ll need to test your data restore process will also depend on whether your industry is subject to any regulations. Some industries such as healthcare and finance have regulations dictating how often data backup and restoration processes must be tested, making it critical that organizations in these industries regularly test their data recovery processes to ensure they maintain compliance.

System Changes

It is particularly important that you test your data recovery plan after making significant changes to your IT infrastructure such as performing software updates or adopting new hardware. Even adopting a new application should trigger a data restore test to ensure that your backup and recovery plan is still adequate given these changes.

Contact Agile IT For Help Solidifying Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Ensuring the continuity of your business in the event of a disaster relies on a robust and regularly tested data restoration plan. However, you might be unsure of how often you should test your backups or whether your current recovery plan is enough to safeguard your business. That’s where Agile IT comes in.

At Agile IT, we put your needs first. Our cloud specialists work closely with you to design a disaster recovery and data restoration process tailored to the unique demands of your business. As part of our comprehensive disaster recovery services, we take care of testing your data restore process, so you can be confident that your critical company data will always be available when you need it most.

Contact us today to discuss how our backup and recovery services can protect your business, and get a personalized quote tailored to your needs.