This week, we consider the question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” In the DR world, it goes like this: “If a data backup is taken and nobody tests its recoverability/validity, is it worth more than a sour grape?” All too often, we rely on “having a backup” but we have never tested our recovery scenarios. If our backups haven’t been tested, guess what? Disaster, waiting to happen.

A person close to me was once fired by a major corporation because an email server crashed, and when a backup restoration was executed, it was only then determined that the proprietary email server database, which shall remain nameless, wasn’t backed up at all. All email: gone. My associate: gone (fired). Career Limiting Event.

Now in this case, there was some trouble with the agent that was supposed to allow the hot database file to be backed up, and actually the whole scenario was in place before my associate arrived. It didn’t matter, though–thousands upon thousands of emails lost, and nobody realized that these critical files we’re being backed up properly. “We have a backup” turned out to be wrong.

Test. Practice a recovery. If a tree falls…