Backups proven to work
before the day you actually need one
A backup nobody has ever restored is a hope, not a backup, and most teams only discover theirs does not work the day they actually need it. We build an agent that spins up a real restore from your latest backup on a schedule, in an isolated environment, and confirms the data is intact and the application actually starts, not just that a backup file exists somewhere.
The process today
Most teams set up backups once, confirm the backup job ran without an error, and never check again whether the result actually restores. That gap is invisible for months or years, right up until a real incident, a corrupted database, a ransomware event, an accidental deletion, forces an actual restore, and that is the worst possible moment to discover the backup is incomplete, corrupted, or restores into a state the application cannot even boot from.
The second cost is recovery time nobody has actually measured. A runbook might say “restore takes about an hour”, based on a guess or a memory of doing it once years ago, but the real number, with today’s data volume and today’s infrastructure, is usually different, and finding that out during an actual outage adds hours to a recovery that was already under pressure.
The third is that backup processes drift silently: a schema change that the backup script does not account for, a new table that never gets included in the export, a credential that expired and has been failing quietly for weeks while the job reports success because it technically ran.
What the agent does
On a schedule you set, weekly or monthly depending on how critical the system is, the agent takes your latest backup and runs a full restore into an isolated environment that never touches production. It checks data integrity with row counts, checksums and spot-checks against known key records, then boots the application against the restored data to confirm it actually starts and serves requests, not just that the database file is intact. The full restore time is measured and logged against your target recovery time, so you know the real number instead of an estimate.
If anything fails, a restore error, a data mismatch, an application that will not boot, the agent alerts immediately with the specific failure, giving your team time to fix the backup process itself long before an actual incident forces the issue. The runbook for a real restore is kept current with whatever steps actually worked in the last successful drill, so it reflects reality rather than a document written once and never revisited. Typical integrations: your existing database and backup tooling, a disposable cloud environment for the drill, and Slack or Telegram for alerts and the dated drill log.
What stays with humans
Deciding the drill schedule, the recovery time target, and what counts as acceptable data loss in a real incident are business decisions your team makes, not something the agent infers. An actual restore into production during a real incident is a deliberate, supervised action a person takes, informed by the drill history showing it has worked reliably; the agent proves the process works, it does not perform a live recovery unsupervised.
Guards
Every drill, its result, and its restore time is logged with a date, building an audit trail that satisfies most compliance and insurance requirements around disaster recovery testing. Drills always run in an isolated environment, never against anything connected to production, so a failed or even a destructive test drill carries zero risk to live data. A kill switch pauses the drill schedule during a planned migration or maintenance window without losing the history already recorded.
Price and timeline
| Option | Price | What it covers | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single automation | from $800 | One database or application, scheduled drills, integrity checks, restore time tracking | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Department package | from $2,300 | Restore drills plus database migrations with safety checks across your data layer | 2 to 4 weeks |
Running cost is usually $20 to $70 a month in cloud and model usage depending on data volume and drill frequency.
Related
This pairs well with database migrations with safety checks since both protect the same data, and with secrets rotation so the credentials a restore depends on stay current too. For the SaaS side of the same problem, see the existing SaaS data backups and monitoring automation. Full package details are on the AI agents service page and the automation-everything overview; for a real recovery we handled from a broken system, see the factory ERP recovery case study and the secure infrastructure case study.
Have you actually tried restoring your backup recently? Get in touch and we will run the first drill with you.
Tired of doing this by hand? We can take the whole routine off your team, not just this step: Routine takeover, from $400 →
FAQ
How is this different from just having backups?
Having a backup file and having a backup that restores cleanly are different things. This automation proves the second one, on a schedule, by actually running the restore rather than trusting that the export process worked.
How much does a backup and restore drill setup cost?
From $800 for one database or application, live in 1 to 2 weeks. Multiple systems with a shared drill schedule usually run $1,500 to $2,500.
How often does a drill run?
Weekly or monthly, your choice, run against an isolated environment so the drill itself never touches production. More critical systems usually warrant a weekly cadence.
What happens if a drill fails?
An alert fires immediately with exactly what failed, a restore error, a data mismatch, an application that would not start, so your team can fix the backup process long before an actual incident, not during one.
Does this work with our existing backup tool?
Yes, the agent runs the restore from whatever backup your current process already produces, whether that is a managed database snapshot, a custom export script, or a third-party backup service.