I’m Kayla. I break things on purpose, so they work when it counts. If you’re curious why that’s my favorite job, I laid it all out in this deeper dive.
I run disaster recovery tests like fire drills. Alarms. Timers. Playbooks. Real pressure. Sweaty palms sometimes. But after a clean test? You breathe easy. You know what? That feeling is worth it.
I’ve used a bunch of tools at work and at client sites. Small offices. Mid-size shops. A few big ones. The main stuff stays the same: a file server, a payroll app, a web app, and a database that scares everyone. Let me explain how the software felt in real life, what went wrong, and what actually helped. (Spoiler: a few early tips from my “software noob” days still save me.)
Quick note: RTO is “how fast we get it back.” RPO is “how much data we can lose.” I write both down for each test. Simple, but strong. For a deeper gloss on both numbers and a downloadable worksheet, swing by Cupid Systems — their two-page checklist slots right into any runbook.
My Little Lab That Could
I test with:
- 22 virtual servers (Windows and Linux)
- A file share that everyone loves but no one cleans
- A payroll box (people watch this one like a hawk)
- A SQL server that eats memory for breakfast
I test during calm hours. Early Friday. Or late Tuesday. Not during payroll. Learned that the hard way.
Veeam Backup & Replication: SureBackup Saved My Neck
Veeam has been my safety net for years. The star here is SureBackup. It boots a copy of your server and checks if it’s alive. I like that it runs tests on its own. Simple lights: pass or fail.
Real test: After a scary patch night, our file server got weird. I ran Instant VM Recovery and had a spare copy running in 7 minutes. Users still worked. RTO: 15 minutes. RPO: 1 hour. Not bad for a messy morning.
What bugged me:
- The backup proxy gulped CPU during our report hour.
- SureBackup labs took a minute to map clean network paths. A few “why can’t this ping” moments.
- On one old box, antivirus didn’t like the backup drivers. Fixed it, but still.
What I loved:
- Instant VM Recovery is fast.
- Email reports made audits easy. I attached them to a SOC 2 review. No drama.
- File-level restore is smooth. I brought back a single Excel tab in 3 minutes. Yes, a single tab. That saved lunch that day.
Zerto: Stress-Test Champ With Loud Alerts
Zerto is my go-to for live failover tests. It moves changes in near real time. It also offers non-disruptive disaster recovery testing, so you can validate recovery plans without nudging production.
Quarterly drill: we “moved” our ERP to a test network. Timer on. Coffee cold. Whole stack came up in 32 minutes. We didn’t touch the real system. That felt safe.
What slipped:
- DNS got messy. Old IPs hung around, and a few folks hit the wrong side. My fault—I forgot to drop the TTL the day before.
- Alerts were chatty. My phone buzzed like a beehive.
Good stuff:
- The test failover didn’t break production.
- The boot order worked fine after I set it once.
- Rollback was one click. Nice and calm.
Azure Site Recovery: Snow Day, Payroll, No Tears
One winter, roads iced over. We planned a payroll test that same week. I used Azure Site Recovery to fail over a single payroll server to the cloud. We followed the runbook step by step.
Real numbers:
- RTO: 41 minutes
- RPO: 5 minutes
- People got paid. That’s the headline.
Snags:
- A VPN route didn’t flip. The fix was one firewall rule. Took 8 minutes.
- Time sync got cranky after boot. A quick NTP nudge helped.
- Cost was fine for one box, but I wouldn’t send the whole farm without a budget talk.
Wins:
- Test Failover didn’t touch production.
- The portal had a clean checklist. I like checklists.
- I pulled a PDF report for our audit folder. Compliance folks smiled.
Rubrik: Fast Mounts and Quiet Confidence
Rubrik gave me quick test mounts. I Live Mounted a SQL backup and let finance poke at it without risk. It felt steady.
A weird save: Rubrik flagged a spike in odd file types on a share. It wasn’t ransomware, but it was a bad script making junk. We cleaned it up. Nice catch.
What slowed me:
- The agent on a busy SQL box added about 5% CPU load during snapshots. Not huge, but I felt it.
- The first full backup took all night. After that, it was smooth.
What I liked:
- One-click restore felt real clean.
- Search was strong. I found random files fast.
- The audit report was neat and tidy. I used it for HIPAA notes.
- For more on the day-to-day tools I keep despite their quirks, see the full rundown.
Datto SIRIS: Small Office, Big Chill
For a small shop, Datto did the trick. We turned on screenshot checks, so we saw proof a server could boot. That little picture? It builds trust.
We even booted a copy in the cloud when the office lost power. It was slower than the sales demo, but folks kept working in a pinch.
Stuff to know:
- Offsite seeding took days on a slow line. Plan for that.
- Test alerts can ping your real users if you’re not careful. I set a safe email group after one awkward “We’re down?” message during a drill.
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery: Web App Shuffle
For a web app, AWS DRS handled the cutover test pretty well. Machines came up in order. Web. App. Database.
Hiccups:
- IAM rules tripped us up at first. We fixed roles and tried again.
- One Windows VM needed a network driver tweak after conversion.
- Costs sneak up if you leave test machines on. I set a hard shutdown rule.
Still, it worked. RTO was 36 minutes. RPO about 2 minutes. Users didn’t notice much.
What Actually Broke During Tests (So You Can Avoid It)
These are my repeat “gotchas.” I keep them on a sticky note.
- DNS TTL was too high; users hit old servers.
- Firewall rules didn’t come with the plan.
- Service accounts had the wrong rights in the test network.
- Time sync drift made logins fail.
- License checks phoned home and said no.
- Backup jobs stepped on report times and slowed stuff down.
- Email alerts went to customers during a test. Oops. Use a test list.
Simple fixes, honest wins.
How I Measure a Good Test
I write numbers. I write names. And I write feelings too. Calm matters.
- RTO and RPO: Did we meet them?
- Boot order: Did the right box start first?
- Login test: Can users sign in and do one real task?
- Data check: Is yesterday’s work there?
- Network check: Can we reach what we need?
- Who does what: Names, phone numbers, and a backup person.
- Rollback: How fast can we go back if needed?
Last quarter, our file share hit:
- RTO: 18 minutes
- RPO: 45 minutes
- Users edited a doc and saved. Passed.
Little Habits That Make Big Calm
- Lower DNS TTL 24 hours before a drill.
- Use a test email group, not real customers.
- Take screenshots of each step. Paste them in the runbook.
- Label networks “TEST” with loud colors.
- Pick a steady day. Not month-end. Not payroll.
- Bring snacks. It sounds silly. It helps.
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Also, keep your runbook plain. Short steps. No