Running a restore drill without the drama

Nathan Chadwick · September 5, 2025 · 1 min read

TLDRRead the short version

Pick one VM, one database, and one file share per quarter and actually restore them.
Time the restore and assign an owner to every gap you find.
Alert on backup job failures and vault replication lag before an incident makes you look.

Scope#

Pick one VM, one database, and one file share per quarter, using Azure Backup as the baseline. Time the restore and assign an owner for gaps.

Alert on backup job failures and vault replication lag before you need them in an incident.

Sources and further reading for the claims above.