Checklist
Backup and Recovery Readiness Checklist
Evaluate whether your backups can support business recovery after ransomware, accidental deletion, hardware failure, or a cloud-service disruption.
A green backup status is not the same as a proven recovery capability. Reliable recovery requires protected copies, documented priorities, defined responsibilities, and restoration tests that reflect real business needs.
Confirm coverage and resilience
Know what is protected, how frequently it is copied, and whether one compromised administrator can alter every backup.
- Inventory critical servers, endpoints, cloud applications, databases, and configuration data.
- Define recovery point and recovery time objectives for each critical business service.
- Maintain multiple copies with at least one isolated, immutable, or offline copy.
- Protect backup consoles with separate credentials and multi-factor authentication.
Test real restoration
A restoration test validates the full chain: credentials, documentation, connectivity, data integrity, application dependencies, and staff familiarity.
- Restore representative files at least quarterly.
- Perform scheduled system or application recovery exercises.
- Record recovery duration and compare it with business requirements.
- Track failures and repeat testing after corrective work.
Keep the plan usable
Store recovery procedures and vendor contacts somewhere the response team can access during an outage. Review the plan after major infrastructure, staffing, or application changes.