# Configured database backup retention as infrastructure‑as‑code, then audited the recovery position and documented the restore procedure — naming the remaining gaps rather than leaving them to be found during an incident. 2025 **Situation.** A product that lives on its data can't afford to lose any, and "there are backups somewhere" is a hope, not a recovery plan. The only backup worth having is one you know restores, into an environment you know you can rebuild. NextMariner had neither half written down. **Task.** Get the recoverable position defined instead of assumed — the data, the environment around it, and an honest account of how far that actually reaches today. **Action.** Backup retention is configured in the Bicep beside the database it protects, so point‑in‑time restore is a property of the template rather than a setting someone once clicked in a portal. The environment around it is defined as infrastructure‑as‑code too, which is the quiet half people forget: restoring a database into an environment you'd have to rebuild by hand from memory isn't really recovery. Then the position was audited and written up — the restore procedure, the drill that would measure it, and the gaps still open: geo‑redundancy is switched off, and the recovery‑time objective is proposed rather than measured, because no drill has been run yet. **Result.** Recovery stopped being a vague reassurance and became a documented position with its gaps named. That reads less impressively than "disaster recovery: done", and it is worth considerably more — whoever touches it next knows what is covered, what isn't, and exactly which drill closes the difference. A named gap is one you can close; an unnamed one is discovered during an incident. --- - Role: Site Reliability Engineer - Categories: [Databases](https://engineer.company/categories/databases/), [PostgreSQL](https://engineer.company/categories/postgresql/), [DevOps](https://engineer.company/categories/devops/), [Infrastructure](https://engineer.company/categories/infrastructure/), [Cloud](https://engineer.company/categories/cloud/), [Reliability & Backups](https://engineer.company/categories/reliability/) - Services: [Database Administration (DBA)](https://engineer.company/services/database-administration/), [Infrastructure as Code](https://engineer.company/services/infrastructure-as-code/), [Backup & Disaster Recovery](https://engineer.company/services/backup-recovery/)