Definition

Testing aimed at verifying the system’s ability to recover from varying degrees of failure.

[Source: BCS]

Comment

Testing recovery generally requires the testers to deliberately ‘crash’ the system (or simulate the crash of the system) to force particular types of recovery. How this will be done varies from one system to another. To test the recovery, it is important to specify what constitutes successful recovery.

Recovery testing is the yin to backup testing's yang. The two styles of testing are very often conducted together, as a recovery will be performed from a back-up taken previously