billed monthly, in advance
| Scope | Automated restore testing of a protected system |
|---|---|
| Cadence | Weekly or monthly, at your election |
| Method | Scheduled restore performed and verified, not simulated |
| Output | Proof of successful restore: evidence you can hand over |
| Audience | Auditors · cyber-insurance underwriters · boards · your own assurance |
| Effort required | None, after setup |
| Prerequisite | The system must already carry a backup line |
| Billing unit | Per protected system, per month |
What this line is actually for
Every backup product reports success. Success means the job ran, the bytes moved, and the schedule held. None of that is a statement about whether the data returns, and the space between those two claims is where an organization discovers, at two in the morning, that nine months of reassuring dashboards were decorative.
A backup is a hypothesis until somebody restores from it. Almost nobody tests it until the day testing is no longer optional, because rehearsing a restore is tedious, occupies a person for an afternoon, and never escapes the list of things to do once matters calm down.
How it runs
Weekly or monthly, at your election, the systems you nominate are restored inside an isolated environment, verified, and the result is recorded as proof of a successful restore. Not a checksum on an archive. Not a log line asserting completion. A restore that took place, and a record demonstrating it took place.
It requires nothing from you after setup. The purpose of automating a drill is that human discipline is the resource that always runs out first.
The question that decides a ransomware week
When an incident begins, the room converges on a single question, and it is not a technical one: are we recovering, or are we negotiating? A team that drills knows within minutes and begins recovering. A team that does not spends its first day finding out, and the first day is precisely when the pressure to simply pay is at its highest.
The documentation is the second benefit. Insurance renewals and audit programs have moved past asking whether backups exist; they want to see a restore that actually happened, and when. This line produces that artifact every cycle, dated and automatic, rather than assembled by somebody the week before an assessment.
What you actually receive
A dated record of each test cycle showing what was restored and that the restore succeeded: the artifact you provide to an auditor, attach to an insurance renewal, or place in front of a board that has begun asking whether the backups are real.
Where this line stops
Recovery Testing is an add-on, not a backup. It tests systems that already carry a backup line, namely Full Machine, Physical Server, or Virtual Machine. Add it to the systems whose failure would halt the business rather than to all of them by reflex.