Every database administrator (DBA) is—first and foremost—human. And everyone makes mistakes. It’s not the absence of mistakes but rather how you prepare for those mistakes that makes you a great DBA. Luckily, there are many ways to prepare for those mishaps, whether the errors are made by you or someone else on your team. One commonly made mistake is to drop an object in a database or accidentally delete data.

Fast, reliable recovery is the whole reason we do backups in the first place. But the complexity of managing multiple backup products, juggling ever-growing local storage, keeping backup chains error free, and coordinating off-site backup storage can have a negative impact on the reliability that brings peace of mind. The more staff, people, and vendors are involved, the less likely your process will be consistent and error-free.