DR Testing Without Impact
Run a test failover to an isolated network to validate the recovery plan end-to-end, measure actual RTO, and document gaps for remediation.
Why DR Testing Is Non-Negotiable
A disaster recovery plan that has never been tested is only a hypothesis. Real-world experience shows that DR plans frequently reveal gaps — configuration drift, missing automation, outdated runbooks, or longer-than-expected startup times — that only surface under test conditions. Regular DR testing is the only way to have confidence that your plan will work when you need it most.
The Test Failover Feature
Test Failover is a built-in Azure Site Recovery feature that lets you simulate a failover to the secondary region without interrupting production. During a test failover, ASR creates copies of the replicated VMs in an isolated virtual network in the secondary region. Production VMs continue running normally in the primary region, so there is no risk to live users.
# Trigger a test failover for a recovery plan:
az site-recovery recovery-plan test-failover \
--resource-group myRG \
--vault-name myRecoveryVault \
--name myRecoveryPlan \
--failover-direction PrimaryToRecovery \
--network-id '/subscriptions/.../virtualNetworks/testFailoverVNet'All lessons in this course
- Defining RTO, RPO, and Recovery Tiers
- Recovery Plans and Automated Failover
- DR Testing Without Impact
- DR for PaaS Services