Reliability
Part of Cloud operations governance
Reviewing backup and recovery evidence regularly
Review backup coverage, job history and restore exercises against each workload's recovery requirements, then assign gaps.
Review backup evidence by asking whether each current workload still has a credible recovery path for its agreed loss events. Check coverage and job records, then examine the latest restoration exercise and its gaps.
Keep the requirement beside the evidence
For each important workload, record its owner, the data and settings needed to restore it, the loss event under review, and the agreed limits for interruption and recovered-data age. Recovery time objective (RTO) is the longest acceptable interruption for that event. Recovery point objective (RPO) is the greatest acceptable age of recovered data. State when each clock starts and what business action marks service as usable.
Keep current backup scope and retention beside those requirements. If a database, storage location or configuration was added after the last exercise, leave its coverage unassessed until checked.
Read each record for what it shows
| Evidence | Useful question | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Backup configuration | What is selected, scheduled and retained? | A setting does not show that a recent job succeeded. |
| Job history | Which jobs ran or failed, and when? | Success does not show that application data is usable. |
| Recovery-point inventory | Is a suitable point available for the loss event? | Availability does not show that it can be restored in time. |
| Exercise report | What data, settings and business action were restored, and what was observed? | The result applies to the scenario and conditions exercised. |
Check whether the authorised restore operator could reach the copy and required instructions during the assumed incident. Record an unverified access path as a gap.
Turn the review into a decision
At each review, compare evidence dates with changes in data volume, dependencies, backup settings and staff. Investigate failed jobs, missed retention, untested components and unfinished exercise actions. Mark each item covered by current evidence, needs correction or unassessed, with an owner and next date.
Choose the review interval from business criticality and change. A material change may warrant an earlier review or exercise.
If an exercise missed an RTO or RPO, keep the result visible until the path is changed and checked again. Do not report an intended target as an observed result. A tabletop discussion can expose missing instructions but cannot demonstrate a completed restore.
Leave a traceable outcome
Record the workload, loss event, evidence inspected, exercise date and scope, observed result, unassessed dependencies, corrective actions and decision owner. The workload's test plan covers how to perform a restore. This recurring review decides whether the available evidence still covers the live workload and who must address its gaps.
