A BACKUP YOU HAVE NEVER RESTORED IS NOT A BACKUP. IT IS A BELIEF.
Most organizations running Cloud EPM believe they have a backup. Far fewer have restored one. The gap between those two states is where the risk lives.
And what makes it worse here than elsewhere. Daily backups happen automatically, which produces a comfortable feeling that the problem is solved. It is not. Automatic capture is ONE of six things a recovery capability needs.
Something is captured. It contains what you need. It is stored somewhere that survives the failure. It is retained long enough. You know how to restore it. And you know how long that takes.
Five questions to ask any client, and they usually cannot answer past the second. How far back can you go? What is NOT in the backup? Where is it stored? How long would a restore take? When did you last test one?
RECOVERY POINT — how much work can we afford to lose. RECOVERY TIME — how long can we be down. These are business decisions. "OBVIOUSLY WE WOULD NEED TO BE BACK THE NEXT DAY" IS NOT ONE. Get numbers, in writing, from somebody with the authority to state them.
BY THE END OF THIS MODULE YOU WILL HAVE RESTORED AN ENVIRONMENT AND TIMED IT. That is what makes the difference. Everything else here is preparation for a stopwatch.