AI Says the Backups Are Fine

AI says the backups are fine. The log was extremely positive about it. Nobody in the room had restored anything since March.

Cardinal Rules. A Saturday cartoon about AI and databases.

A backup job writes a line that says success. A model reads that line. A model then reports that the backups are fine, because in every sentence it has ever read, success means fine.

Here is what that line actually proves. A file was written. That is the whole list.

It does not prove the file can be opened. It does not prove the drive it sits on is readable today. It does not prove anybody knows the order to restore the log chain, or that the recovery model is what you assume, or that the encryption certificate still exists on the server you would restore onto. Most of the bad nights I have seen came from one of those five, and every one of them had a green job history.

Cardinal cannot help with this, and the reason is worth understanding. A model reads text about a system. A restore touches the system. Those are different acts, and only one of them tells you the truth.

So put a restore on the calendar. Once a month, take last night’s backup, restore it onto a spare server under a different name, run a couple of counts, then drop it. An hour a month. The first time you do it you will find something, and you will be glad it was a Tuesday instead of the day the array died.

Cardinal Rule

A backup is a rumor until somebody restores it.

One spare server, one hour a month, and the whole fear goes away.

Cardinal now calls itself a log optimist. On the desk this season: AI: Nobody’s in There. But we’re still in here. (on Amazon) and 100 AI Interview Questions and Answers for Data Professionals (Kindle, also on Amazon.in, paperback and audiobook).

Next Saturday, the query finishes in two seconds and the numbers are wrong.

A green backup job is not a promise, it is a receipt for a box nobody opened.

Published by Pinal Dave on SQLAuthority. More of my work at pinaldave.com.