Infrastructure · Infrastructure Resilience · 10
Recovery testing
Recovery testing exercises the organization’s continuity and disaster recovery arrangements under controlled conditions, from single-system restores to the full rebuild of critical services, and measures the result against the objectives the business has set. It is needed when plans exist but have never been run, when recovery objectives were set without evidence that they can be met, when a regulator, customer or insurer requires tested recovery, or when infrastructure has changed since the last test. Testing produces a test program covering components, applications and whole-service recovery, executed tests with measured recovery times and data loss, the gaps and failures observed, and the record that turns the plan from a document into a demonstrated capability.
Scope
What the review covers.
- Test program design: scope, types, frequency and success criteria
- Component restore tests on a schedule
- Application and service recovery tests with dependencies
- Whole-service or site recovery exercises, including isolated recovery for attack scenarios
- Measurement of recovery time and recovery point against objectives
- Gap recording and remediation tracking
Deliverables
What you receive.
| Deliverable | Form |
|---|---|
| Test program | What is tested, how, how often, success criteria |
| Test execution | Supervised tests with timing and observation |
| Results report | Measured results, gaps, failures, dependencies |
| Remediation and re-test plan | Owned actions and next test dates |
Prerequisites
What we need from you.
- Continuity and disaster recovery plans, or agreement to test and then build them
- A recovery environment isolated from production
- Availability of the staff who would perform real recovery
Related
Where this sits.
By David Selakovic · Published 2026-10-16 · Revised 2026-10-16 · Reviewed every 180 days
Questions
Asked before engaging.
What if a test fails?
Then the test has done its job. A failure in a test is a gap found before an incident finds it. It is recorded and remediated.
Can testing be done without risk to production?
Yes. Tests run in an isolated environment designed for the purpose.
How is this different from backup recovery drills under Incident Readiness?
Drills rehearse recovery during an attack scenario. The test program covers all recovery cases on a schedule. They overlap deliberately.