A client's server room flood last month made me rethink my whole backup check process

I was at a small law firm in Akron doing a routine server check when I found an inch of water under the rack. A pipe in the ceiling above had a slow leak for weeks. Their local backups were on a NAS sitting right on the floor, and the offsite sync had failed silently 48 hours prior. Now I physically check the area around every server and verify the cloud backup log with a screenshot, not just a 'success' message. How do you guys test that your clients' backups are actually working and not just set up?

3 comments

3 Comments

robinson.leo29d ago

Read a blog post that said to restore a random file from backup every month... forces you to check the whole chain.

garcia.wade29d ago

Tried that and found a broken script last quarter. It's a solid habit to get into.

kai6575d ago

Seriously? That sounds like busywork.