Question #14. Does your IT vendor insist on doing periodic test restores of your backups to make sure your data is not corrupt and can be restored in the event of a disaster?
Every time I speak with a business owner or leader, I ask them about their backups. Naturally, they all tell me that backups are performed of their critical data. When I press them about how long it took them to perform their last test restore, nearly every single one of them is unable to give me an answer. In fact, most of them are not sure if they are even testing their ability to restore their backups. Do you remember back in grade school when that monthly fire alarm would go off and all the kids would shuffle outside in an orderly manner? Remember how your teacher would make it a point to emphasize that conducting those drills in a calm and orderly manner was so important? Those drills were designed to save your life, in the case of an emergency. And you knew exactly what to do because you had practiced it so many times.
Testing your data backup recovery as a regular drill is critical to being able to perform that function in a calm and orderly manner when the time comes. Think about all the people you employ and all the families those people support, most businesses I know could never survive at the loss of their data. With so many lives dependent on that data, doesn’t it make sense that regular data backup recovery drills are a part of your IT strategy?