Top Ten Critical Rules for Backup

There are ten critical rules that should be considered to be set in stone, and followed at all times:
1. Think insurance.
2. Backup to recover.
3. Trust empirical evidence only, do not make assumptions.
4. Leading edge is OK; however, bleeding edge is not.
5. Document systems.
6. Backup is not archive.
7. Fault tolerance and high availability do not supplant backup.
8. Backup is a corporate activity, not an IT activity.
9. Test, test, test.
10. Backup and recovery systems must evolve with the company.

Source:Enterprise Backup