For a long time, I confused having backups with being recoverable. In 2024, I ran structured disaster recovery drills across my services and discovered how many hidden assumptions were wrong. This retrospective captures the practical framework that finally made my backup strategy credible.
Stock photo source: Pexels , image reference: photo 5203849 .
Defining recovery goals first
Before touching tooling, I defined service-specific targets:
- RPO (data loss tolerance),
- RTO (recovery time objective),
- acceptable degraded mode behavior.
Different services had different priorities. Applying one blanket policy had been a previous mistake.
Service tiers I used
I grouped systems into three recovery tiers:
- Tier 1: critical edge and identity services,
- Tier 2: important but delay-tolerant internal tools,
- Tier 3: low-risk lab and experimental services.
Each tier got distinct backup frequency, retention, and drill cadence.
Backup architecture
My working pattern was:
- local snapshots for fast rollback,
- encrypted off-host backups for disaster scenarios,
- immutable copy retention for ransomware resilience.
I also maintained a separate metadata inventory describing backup sources, encryption keys, and ownership.
What I actually backed up
Beyond obvious data volumes, I added:
- infrastructure configs,
- secrets metadata (not raw secrets in plain text),
- deployment manifests,
- DNS and certificate state,
- runbooks and dependency maps.
Losing configuration context can be as damaging as losing data.
Restore drill structure
Every drill followed the same flow:
- declare incident scenario,
- start timer,
- restore target service in isolation,
- run functional verification checks,
- record blockers and timeline,
- update playbook and automation.
I ran drills monthly for tier 1 and quarterly for lower tiers.
First painful findings
My first round exposed serious gaps:
- one backup job silently excluded a mounted volume,
- recovery docs assumed a DNS zone that had changed,
- one decryption key path was outdated,
- app startup dependencies were undocumented.
None of these showed up in normal backup success logs.
Tooling and automation
I used scheduled jobs with checksum verification and failure alerts. Every backup run emitted:
- completion status,
- bytes transferred,
- changed file counts,
- integrity verification results.
For restores, I added scripted smoke checks to avoid false “restore succeeded” conclusions.
Example verification mindset
A valid restore meant more than files being present. It required:
- service starts cleanly,
- data schema is compatible,
- external dependencies resolve,
- user-facing behavior works.
I documented exact verification commands per service so drills were repeatable.
Incident simulation that paid off
In one simulation, I assumed a primary node loss plus corrupted latest backup archive. Because I had tested multi-generation restore paths, I recovered from an older snapshot and replayed acceptable data deltas within target RPO.
Without prior drills, this would have become a prolonged outage.
Metrics I tracked
I measured:
- backup success rate,
- restore success rate,
- median restore time by tier,
- documented vs actual recovery steps.
The most useful metric was restore success rate under realistic constraints.
Improvements after three drill cycles
- RTO for tier-1 services improved significantly,
- runbooks became shorter and more accurate,
- team confidence increased during planned maintenance,
- recovery responsibilities were clearer.
The hidden benefit was strategic: architecture decisions started considering recoverability from the start.
Rules I now enforce
- No backup policy without tested restore path.
- Every critical service has an owner and drill schedule.
- Every major infra change triggers backup scope review.
- Backup alerts must include actionable context.
- Recovery docs are versioned with infrastructure changes.
Final perspective
Disaster recovery readiness is not bought by installing backup software. It is earned through repeated, realistic drills and brutally honest post-drill updates. Once I accepted that, my backup system transformed from a checkbox into a true operational safety net.