How to Conduct a Successful Disaster Recovery Test

More and more companies claim that they have a Disaster Recovery Plan in case of disasters, accidents, and unforeseen circumstances. However, the most common mistake is that preparations stop there – with a plan that is supposed to work in theory.

DR plans that have never been tested cannot prove their real value and benefit to the business. Among the risks are the possibility that various accesses may have expired, key people responsible for execution may no longer work in the company, or the steps in the plan may be outdated and no longer applicable to current company operations. 

Most often, organizations discover such gaps at the worst possible moment - precisely when the Disaster Recovery plan needs to be applied in a real incident. 

In this article, we share the advice of the IT experts at AbsCloud on how to conduct an effective DR test that will genuinely show if your IT infrastructure is prepared for emergency situations. 

Why DR tests are often avoided or postponed

Similar to preventive measures in many aspects, regular audits and testing of DR plans are often postponed or overlooked by businesses. Main reasons for this are:

• Uncertainty about what will happen during an interruption: Testing a DR plan may seem like a risk of intentionally disrupting working systems. If the processes and tests are not properly planned, this problem can become a reality. If this applies to your organization, you already have a clear indication of a potential gap in your disaster recovery strategy. 
• Responsible persons believe everything is working fine: If backups are performed regularly and procedures are documented, people assume everything is fine. However, if none of this is tested, you’re operating only on assumptions. 
• Lack of resources and prioritization: DR tests may require significant resources for planning, coordination, and execution. Companies usually prioritize operational processes and less frequently dedicate the necessary attention to security and resilience strategies.  
• Lack of regulatory requirements in some sectors: Not every organization falls under the strictest requirements related to cybersecurity, data protection, redundancy, availability, and accessibility. When not subject to regulatory pressure, some companies postpone or completely ignore best practices for protecting their business, operations, and customers. Read more about the topic in our article on NIS2 and the New Cybersecurity Requirements.

The consequences of such decisions usually lead to similar scenarios in which companies realize their mistakes and oversights exactly when everything needs to be available and operating as expected, although it hasn't been timely tested.

More on the topic from our team: How aviation and IT infrastructure management are similar and why everything is checked over and over again, even when it runs flawlessly

Types of Disaster Recovery Tests

DR testing is not a single, one-time action, but a combination of approaches aimed at verifying the business’s readiness to react or be proactive in different situations. Such tests should be planned regularly, as well as after significant changes in IT infrastructure, migration to a new provider or data center, key personnel changes, or updates to the application architecture. 

Tabletop Exercise

When it comes to cybersecurity, this is a process where responsible team members gather together and review specific steps for various scenarios (what happens if the database server fails on a public holiday; how do we act if the data center is affected by a natural disaster; etc.). 

You may be surprised to discover that there are significant omissions in the documented plan: outdated procedures, dependencies between systems, reliance on certain individuals, lack of clarity in processes, and so on.   

Tip from AbsCloud: Hold this type of test at least once or twice a year to identify the most obvious mismatches between your DR plan and your company’s current readiness to implement it.   

Walk-through Test (Documentation Review)

This is an even more detailed version of the tabletop exercise, where you clarify not only what happens at each moment, but also whether it will actually work. Here, you need to check if required access credentials are available and current, if backup copies actually exist and are ready to use, if emergency contacts are correct, etc.

You still don’t proceed to actually testing the entire process, but you further validate whether each step’s required document, resource, or contact is available. You can perform walk-through tests in parallel with any tabletop exercise you conduct. 

Simulation Test / Technical Test

In such a test, you check specific technical components of the DR plan, without fully disrupting the actual operation of systems. You can test in an isolated environment how backup restoration works, what happens in case of a specific database failure, whether a system recovers within the planned time (RTO), etc. 

Usually in such tests, you discover whether you really have a backup that can be restored successfully and promptly. 

Test in a Parallel Environment

This is the most complete test you can do without affecting real business operations. It involves activating a parallel environment in which you simulate load and run a DR test of systems and processes without risk. However, this option requires additional resources, as you are essentially duplicating the production environment and its load.

In this test, you can discover issues with capacity, configuration, and more—things that may look fine in theory or in the documentation but are not regularly tested.

Full Failover Test

In this type of test, you now send real traffic to the DR environment for a certain period. This is the moment when you understand whether your disaster recovery plan really works entirely, as you subject systems to real load, test integrations, and observe user behavior after switching to the alternative environment. 

If you plan such a test, keep in mind that every detail matters, including communication with all affected parties and your plan for immediate rollback to the primary environment. Highly critical systems are recommended to undergo a full failover test at least once a year as part of scheduled maintenance. 

What Should a Disaster Recovery Plan Contain

Most DR tests include several key steps:

• Defining the scenario: Determine what type of incident will be simulated (complete website outage, particular system failure, data leak or theft, ransomware attack, natural disaster, etc.). The scenario should describe realistically and specifically what happens and what needs to be checked. 
• Scope of affected systems and processes: Different scenarios will likely test different systems and processes. You need to be clear and document which ones are subject to each specific DR test. 
• RTO and RPO objectives: You should approach each test knowing exactly how much time you can afford to lose (recovery time objective) and how much data you can afford to lose (recovery point objective) in an incident. Only then can you measure if your test was successful and if your business is prepared. 
• Roles, responsibilities, and communication: Clearly document who is responsible for conducting the test, communication with affected teams and clients, and decisions about when to initiate rollback or complete activities.  
• Rollback plan: If the test goes badly, you need to return to normal operations as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Make sure the necessary steps are known and planned in advance and all participants know exactly at what point this plan should be activated.
• Documenting results: Regardless of whether any gaps are found, every step and result from the test should be documented. 

What do companies most often discover during a DR test?

Organizations that conduct DR tests (especially rarely or for the first time) often discover surprising facts, such as:

• Backups exist but cannot be restored quickly and easily;
• RTO/RPO objectives do not match reality;
• There are missing or undocumented accesses to files, data, and directories; 
• Undocumented dependencies exist between systems or teams;
• The communication plan and role assignments are missing or outdated.

The Role of the data center in testing

One of the prerequisites for a meaningful Disaster Recovery test is choosing the right location, sufficiently geographically distant from the primary site. This way, your business has an alternative even if incidents affect your physical infrastructure and connectivity. Two separate servers in one office or data center do not guarantee Disaster Recovery in the full sense but rather provide local redundancy.  

AbsCloud Data Center (AC☁DC) operates precisely as a Disaster Recovery site for companies from across Bulgaria, and especially for those whose main infrastructure is in Sofia and the western part of the country. 

Learn more about the Disaster Recovery service at AC☁DC

Our data center also offers a Remote Hands & Eyes service that can make it easier for your team during DR test steps, such as activating equipment, checking connectivity, or any other physical intervention that can be carried out by our IT specialists based on your instructions, without having to send an employee to the DR site. In a real emergency, this option could prove critical for your business.

If you are looking for a suitable Disaster Recovery location for your business or planning a DR test and need consultation, contact our team today. We will answer your questions and help you test and validate the readiness of your infrastructure and business for response and recovery in all possible scenarios

Свържете се с нас

---

Интересувате се от колокация на сървъри или други услуги? Свържете се с екипа ни още сега.

Име и фамилия (required)

Имейл (required)

Запитване (required)

Телефон