This page lists Tips, Tricks and Traps and SLA-Templates related to Backup and Recovery to avoid common pitfalls.

Exact specification of Backup- and Recovery details is not simple. It's more than just "The database server needs to be backed up daily."

Example: If a very important person by mistake deleted his inbox, you might need to recover just the inbox of one user. If this service details hasn't been specified and agreed on, you might not get it, or not timely and only with additional costs.

If the agreement is

• between Business and Backup team, it's called "SLA" (Service Level Agreement)
• internal within IS/IT it's called "OLA" (Operational Level Agreement)
• If Backup- and Restore Service is outsourced, then the SLA is the input for an "UC" (Underpinning Contract)

Our Template Service / Operations Level Agreement (SLA / OLA) for Backup and Recovery supports you in fast, efficient and precise creation of such a document.

Tip to avoid that Trap:

This educational page explains an often neglected risk of having invalid and unusable database backups.

It also serves as example to which level of details you should formulate your backup requirements when setting up a backup SLA.