“Testing, testing, 1,2,3 …”

New Year’s resolutions take many forms. From regular exercise, to less screen time, to better habits in your IT work life, there is no shortage of advice. In the category of better IT habits is that old chestnut about testing backups. Everyone knows they should do it, and many write about it. But how many actually do it?

Industry expert James Green wrote about backup testing in Orange Matter, where I especially enjoyed his analogy to Schrodinger’s cat. Until you test your backups, in theory, they are both corrupted and valid. The uncertainty can be unnerving.

But where to begin? How many backups must you test to be able to sleep soundly, knowing your recoverability game is on point? SolarWinds Head Geek Thomas LaRock drew on a friend’s experience testing king crab quality to come up with helpful advice on statistical sampling when testing database backups. If you want to learn more about recoverability testing and the king crab, check out his white paper here.

Fortunately, SolarWinds^® Backup makes it easy to test backups, and we’ve created a handy five-step guide to show you how. Of course, you have to back up in order to recover, but that’s included in the five steps, which you can find here.

We all know that disasters, large and small, will happen in the new year. Human error is real, hardware fails, and malware eventually fights its way through even the best defenses. When it happens, you will no doubt be called upon to save the day. Why not take some time now, during the holiday lull, to test your backups and set your mind at ease? Set aside an afternoon and make the testing resolution a reality.

Don’t get bitten by Schrodinger’s backup.

For those of you who don’t know how to test your backups, or who don’t have a data protection solution that can automate that testing, why not give SolarWinds Backup a try? 

Additional reading:

• Why Standardizing on Backup Could Help Your MSP Business

Carrie Reber is senior product marketing manager for SolarWinds MSP.