Friday, November 30, 2012

Verify backups before implementing changes

Going to make a change to a machine?

Verify that you have good colds before you go through.

Almost every change or upgrade plan I have starts off with:

  1. Day after colds: Verify backups for hosts {a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h} 
  2. Day of implementation:  Verify backups for hosts {a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h}

If that backup isn't good, either take a good backup immediately before preceding or reschedule your implementation for a window after the next full backup.

I've had this save me a time or two. A previously bulletproof backup decided to cook off the week of one of my upgrades.