Recovery testing intervals

[pdrace]

I run SRM tests of recovery plans on a weekly basis. I've also run a real recovery and failback for further verification.

I am being asked how often the second type of test should be run, yearly, semi-annual etc.

What do you do and recommend in terms of test frequency?

Should a real recovery be run for testing when Vcenter/SRM is upgraded or is running tests sufficient?

[vbrowncoat · Accepted solution]

That is great that you are testing so frequently. Nice to hear. It really depends on your environment and your requirements. When I was a customer and partner helping customers I usually found it to be once every 6-12 months, though this was really more to keep the business happy, from my standpoint a test of the recovery plan was sufficient.

A failover/failback might make sense after upgrading, though it wouldn't necessarily have to be the entire plan. It could just be done for a subset or test group.

As I mentioned at the beginning though, it really depends on your comfort level and your business requirements.

[pdrace]

That sounds reasonable.

Thanks