While backups are important, nothing is more important than recovery. You do mention the importance of recovery, “you have to make certain that those backups work properly”. All too often, there are organizations that find they cannot recover a down database because their backup is not valid. Tape head issues, software bugs, files not backed up, etc. These types of issues are only revealed when performing a recovery.

A good DBA looks for opportunities to recover their backups when refreshing a non-production database or preparing a new system for an upgrade. Not only do you test the backup, but you also test the recovery procedure so you don’t have to remember some obscure task at 4 AM.

Crisis has struck! This week’s Log Buffer editor had to beg off at the eleventh hour when his time vanished. It happens. But, in every crisis, an opportunity (well . . .  maybe, maybe not). The opportunity — an open …