Using Synology C2 and Hyper Backup to Automate Disaster Recovery Drills
Running Scheduled DR Drills to Check Recovery Readiness
Regular testing is now an important part of disaster recovery planning. Backups that are never checked often fail when they are needed most, turning small problems into long outages. Automated disaster recovery drills help businesses make sure that their backup data can be restored, that their systems can be restored in a reasonable amount of time, and that their recovery plans work in real life.
Businesses can automate disaster recovery drills and keep checking that they are ready to recover without stopping production systems by using Synology C2 cloud services and Hyper Backup together.
Why Disaster Recovery Drills Are Important
A lot of businesses spend a lot of money on backup systems, but they don’t often test full recovery. This gives people a false sense of security. People often don’t notice configuration errors, corrupted backups, permission problems, and old recovery methods until an outage happens.
More and more, regulatory frameworks and cyber-insurance companies want proof of recovery testing. Automated disaster recovery drills let businesses show that their backups are not only there, but also work, are up to date, and can meet recovery time goals.
What Automation Does in DR Testing
Testing disaster recovery by hand is costly, takes a lot of time, and is prone to mistakes. It often needs staff to work together, maintenance windows, and temporary infrastructure. Because of this, a lot of businesses only test recovery once a year or less.
This model changes with automation. Scheduled recovery drills can be done over and over again, recorded, and reviewed without anyone having to do anything. This makes it possible to test more often, keep better records, and find weaknesses in the recovery chain more quickly.
How Synology Helps with Automated DR Drills
Synology’s integrated backup and cloud ecosystem makes it easy to set up automated disaster recovery testing.
Hyper Backup lets you schedule backups of NAS data, apps, and system settings with different versions. When used with Synology C2 cloud storage, backups are safely copied to a different location, which protects against physical disasters, ransomware, and outages at the site level.
Automated verification features make sure that backups are correct, and snapshot-based recovery lets businesses test restores without overwriting live data. You can do recovery drills on different hardware or in separate environments to make sure that data can be restored in a clean and predictable way.
Running Scheduled Recovery Tests Without Stopping
Most of the time, automated disaster recovery drills follow a set pattern. Backups are made on a set schedule, copied to Synology C2, and then restored to a test environment every so often. These test restores check that the data is consistent, the permissions are correct, the application is working correctly, and the system boots up correctly.
Hyper Backup lets you do granular restores, so companies can test specific workloads like file shares, application data, or system settings. This lets you test specific things without using too much storage or computing power.
You can keep track of and review the results of each drill, which makes a clear audit trail that shows that you are still ready to recover.
How to Measure Recovery Readiness and RTO Alignment
When you measure disaster recovery drills, they are most useful. Automated testing helps businesses keep track of their recovery time goals, the freshness of their data, and their success rates over time.
If recovery times start to go above acceptable levels, you can proactively change the performance of your storage, the capacity of your network, or the frequency of your backups. This changes disaster recovery from something that happens after the fact to a part of running a business.
For companies that work in regulated fields, having written recovery drills also helps with compliance audits and cyber insurance requirements.
Scaling DR Drills Across Mixed Environments
Many modern environments include cloud workloads, on-premises systems, and branch offices. With Synology C2, businesses can centralize disaster recovery testing while still having local control over production systems.
If you don’t want to redesign your infrastructure, you can change your retention policies and drill frequency as your data grows. As environments grow, this makes automated recovery testing possible.
About the Epis Technology
Using Synology NAS, Hyper Backup, and Synology C2 cloud services, Epis Technology helps businesses plan, set up, and run automated disaster recovery plans. Their team sets up scheduled disaster recovery drills, checks that recovery workflows are working, and makes sure that recovery testing is in line with business continuity goals. Epis Technology also keeps an eye on, documents, and improves disaster recovery plans to make sure they stay useful as environments change and compliance needs change.