When was the last time you tested your backups? The critical importance of backup data and testing

The backups are made by either the macOS or a 3rd party utility you use, so checking the settings is important to make sure the software responsible for making your backup is configured properly. Things you want to pay attention to here are:

When was the last time you tested your backups

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Depending on the speed of your network and the size of your backup, the verification can take a long time. If everything is OK, Time Machine will carry on as usual after the verification has finished. However, if an issue is found, Time Machine will let you know.

Once a file is restored, open it to see if there are any issues, and then repeat the process with different files from different time periods. Of course, picking a few random files to test the backup is more than most people do, but this method still leaves a lot of data untouched and untested. Therefore, the most reliable way to verify a backup is to restore the whole thing. This is, of course, a very time consuming task and takes some preparing, but depending on how important your data is, it is a task that needs to be done every so often.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, it is better to have multiple backups. If a backup goes bad you can restore your data from another source, but the occasional verification is still highly recommended.

Some people thinking backup of an entire system or virtual machine can be sufficient. But backups need to be application specific. So if the hardware is lost, the application can be put onto a new machine or operating system. So, when you ask yourself these questions, consider your entire environment.

If you back up to a network disk, Time Machine periodically verifies that your backups are in good condition. This scheduled verification happens automatically, but you can manually verify a backup at any time.

The SQL Server backup and restore component provides an essential safeguard for protecting critical data stored in your SQL Server databases. To minimize the risk of catastrophic data loss, you need to back up your databases to preserve modifications to your data on a regular basis. A well-planned backup and restore strategy helps protect databases against data loss caused by a variety of failures. Test your strategy by restoring a set of backups and then recovering your database to prepare you to respond effectively to a disaster.

In addition to local storage for storing the backups, SQL Server also supports backup to and restore from Azure Blob Storage. For more information, see SQL Server Backup and Restore with Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. For database files stored using Azure Blob Storage, SQL Server 2016 (13.x) provides the option to use Azure snapshots for nearly instantaneous backups and faster restores. For more information, see File-Snapshot Backups for Database Files in Azure. Azure also offers an enterprise-class backup solution for SQL Server running in Azure VMs. A fully-managed backup solution, it supports Always On availability groups, long-term retention, point-in-time recovery, and central management and monitoring. For more information, see Azure Backup for SQL Server in Azure VM.

Backing up your SQL Server databases, running test restores procedures on your backups, and storing copies of backups in a safe, off-site location protects you from potentially catastrophic data loss. Backing up is the only way to protect your data.

database backupA backup of a database. Full database backups represent the whole database at the time the backup finished. Differential database backups contain only changes made to the database since its most recent full database backup.

A backup and restore strategy contains a backup portion and a restore portion. The backup part of the strategy defines the type and frequency of backups, the nature, and speed of the hardware that is required for them, how backups are to be tested, and where and how backup media is to be stored (including security considerations). The restore part of the strategy defines who is responsible for performing restores, how restores should be performed to meet your goals for database availability and minimizing data loss, and how restores are tested.

Designing an effective backup and restore strategy requires careful planning, implementation, and testing. Testing is required: you do not have a backup strategy until you have successfully restored backups in all the combinations that are included in your restore strategy and have tested the restored database for physical consistency. You must consider a variety of factors. These include:

Ensure that you place your database backups on a separate physical location or device from the database files. When your physical drive that stores your databases malfunctions or crashes, recoverability depends on the ability to access the separate drive or remote device that stored the backups in order to perform a restore. Keep in mind that you could create several logical volumes or partitions from a same physical disk drive. Carefully study the disk partition and logical volume layouts before choosing a storage location for the backups.

The best choice of recovery model for the database depends on your business requirements. To avoid transaction log management and simplify backup and restore, use the simple recovery model. To minimize work-loss exposure, at the cost of administrative overhead, use the full recovery model. To minimize impact on log size during bulk-logged operations while at the same time allowing for recoverability of those operations, use bulk-logged recovery model. For information about the effect of recovery models on backup and restore, see Backup Overview (SQL Server).

Under the full recovery model, you should schedule frequent log backups. Scheduling differential backups between full backups can reduce restore time by reducing the number of log backups you have to restore after restoring the data.

You do not have a restore strategy until you have tested your backups. It is very important to thoroughly test your backup strategy for each of your databases by restoring a copy of the database onto a test system. You must test restoring every type of backup that you intend to use. It is also recommended that once you restore the backup, you perform database consistency checks via DBCC CHECKDB of the database to validate the backup media was not damaged.

We recommend that you document your backup and restore procedures and keep a copy of the documentation in your run book.We also recommend that you maintain an operations manual for each database. This operations manual should document the location of the backups, backup device names (if any), and the amount of time that is required to restore the test backups.

Experts say the biggest reason ransomware targets and/or their insurance providers still pay when they already have reliable backups is that nobody at the victim organization bothered to test in advance how long this data restoration process might take.

Interesting.The bit about one or two days, is accurate, for one person. Imagine a large company, unless you have an it person to help each person, you are down, a workweek at least. Remember, they have to restore their systems first. You are the gravy on their meat.Secondly, how fast you can restore, is based on how fast your data can be uploaded back to you. Rember, upload is about ten times slower then download speed. It took you overnight to copy the data to your backup, how how long to get it back? And now to decrypt it, and do this for every machine? And that is if there are no problems. Now, double that time, you have to clean and verify those machines, restore the programs and verify the incoming data, reset, and have angry people looking over your shoulder, making suggestion, doubling the time to complete the project, easily a week per floor, of a average mom and pop business.

I buy identical high end HP workstation laptops off-lease and keep 3 synched systems. A ready supply on ebay. When I got a blue screen (happened last week, first time in 3 yrs), I popped it out of the dock, stuck in a backup machine that I keep 200 yds away at my workshop/test lab, and was back in business in 5 minutes while I restored a system image to the machine that died.

As ransomware continues to be among the dominant cyber threats organizations face this year, businesses have responded by ensuring they are backing up their data. Although data backups are part of the layered approach to protecting your business, many organizations are improperly backing up their data, and these backups must be protected and kept safe from ransomware attacks.

If one of your data backups becomes encrypted from a ransomware attack, you will have the ability to recover from a different source, provided a backup is present across different locations. Cyber-criminals are deploying their ransomware to look for any network-attached storage devices. As a result, any network resources a user has access to will become encrypted.

The frequency of backups also matters. How often does your data change? If your customer database has over 1,000 updates per hour, losing just one hour of data can have a significant impact on your business.

Organizations that become encrypted in a ransomware attack have to think quickly about how they will deploy their data restoration process, as each second matters when your network is down, and clients are on the line. Developing your incident response plan will ensure your company has a specific policy to restore your data in the event of a ransomware attack.

Some software applications are easier than others when it comes to testing. In my example, we were able to restore the database as a different name and point the software to it. Items like files and folders may be as easy as copying to a different area of your hard drive. Other applications may require your solution provider to get involved. This is the most important step and should be done at least once to give you an idea of what the recovery process entails. Testing and learning the recovery process will prepare you for a critical situation later, should it arise. 2ff7e9595c