You must identify the requirements for the availability of your data in order to choose the appropriate backup and restore strategy. Your overall backup strategy defines the type and frequency of backups and the nature and speed of the hardware required for them.

It is strongly recommended that you test your backup and recovery procedures thoroughly. Testing helps to ensure that you have the required backups to recover from various failures, and that your procedures can be executed smoothly and quickly when a real failure occurs.

This section includes the following topics.