Sample · lesson 01
Define what recovered means
Replace a green backup icon with specific, testable recovery requirements.
A snapshot is a starting point
A backup job can finish successfully while omitting the files your application needs. An archive can be internally consistent while containing the wrong database. A restored database can start while holding incomplete or outdated records. These are different questions, and each needs a separate check.
In this lab, recovered means that two required files return unchanged, a database restores into a separate empty target, and its ordered account and order contents exactly match a baseline recorded before backup. The source must be offline during recovery.
A deliberately small application
The sample application is an orders ledger: three accounts, five orders, and an order total of €149.00. The records include an accented name, an apostrophe, and a missing region, so checking only that a table exists would miss important content.
We also require a runbook file. It has no effect on whether PostgreSQL starts. That makes it a useful example of an operational dependency that a database-only backup could accidentally omit.