Backup monitoring is the automated oversight of backup jobs for success, failure, completeness, and duration. The goal is to detect failed backups immediately — before they are needed in an emergency.
ISO 27001 Annex A control A.8.13 (Information Backup) requires that backups are created regularly and tested. Backup monitoring complements this requirement operationally: setting up backups is insufficient — you must be able to demonstrate that they actually work. Good monitoring checks backup status, data integrity (e.g., via checksums), retention periods, and compliance with defined RPO/RTO targets. Failures should automatically escalate as tickets or alerts.