Backup & disaster recovery
Everyone has backups. Not everyone has restores.
A backup that has never been restored is a theory. We test yours, measure how long a real recovery takes, and write down who does what, so the bad day is a known quantity rather than a discovery.
The Monday this is for
The backup ran every night for four years. Nobody had ever restored from it.
It reported success every morning, so nobody looked. Then something goes badly wrong, and the restore is attempted for the first time under pressure, by people who have never done it, against a deadline made of payroll and client calls.
Sometimes it works. Often it turns out one critical system was never included, or the files come back but the application that reads them does not, or it restores fine and takes four days. Four days is a different business problem from four hours, and it is one you can find out about in advance.
Two numbers
Everything here comes down to these.
They sound technical. They are business decisions, and they are yours to make rather than ours.
How long can you be down?
Recovery time
From the moment something fails to the moment people are working again. A law firm mid-closing and a warehouse at 3am have very different answers, and the honest one is rarely “immediately”.
Faster costs more, in a curve that gets steep near the end. Knowing where your business genuinely sits on that curve is what stops you buying either too little or far too much.
How much work can you lose?
Recovery point
If the last good copy is from midnight, everything since midnight is gone and has to be redone from memory or from paper. For some businesses that is an annoying morning. For others it is unrecoverable.
This is the number people underestimate, because it is invisible until it is not. It is also usually cheaper to improve than recovery time.
We work both out with you, system by system, because they are rarely the same across a business. Your accounting system and your shared drive almost certainly deserve different answers.
What is in place
Backups that are built to be restored from.
What gets copied
- Full images of servers and systems, not just files
- Microsoft 365 data, which Microsoft does not back up for you
- The business applications, and their configuration
- Staff computers, where the work actually lives
Where it goes
- A local copy, for the fast everyday restore
- An encrypted off-site copy, replicated automatically
- Archived versions, so you can go back rather than just back one day
- Separated so ransomware cannot reach the copies
Testing
- Restores actually performed, not just reported as successful
- A measured recovery time for your business, in writing
- Failures found on a quiet Tuesday rather than a bad Friday
- Results you see, whether they are good or not
The written plan
- Who does what, in what order
- Who gets told, including clients and any regulator
- Where to work from if the office is unusable
- A copy that is reachable when your systems are not
When it is bigger
- Business impact analysis, to find what genuinely must come back first
- Off-site recovery and colocation facilities
- Backup internet and phone service so you can still be reached
- Long-standing supplier relationships, for the week everybody wants the same hardware
As you grow
- Capacity that scales without a re-architecture
- New systems added to the plan as they arrive
- Reviewed at least yearly, and after anything significant changes
- The retention your insurer or regulator requires
The one most people miss
Microsoft does not back up your Microsoft 365 data.
This surprises nearly everybody, and it is written plainly in Microsoft’s own terms. They guarantee the service is available. Keeping your data safe from a deleted mailbox, a compromised account, or someone emptying a SharePoint site is explicitly your responsibility.
Their built-in retention buys you a limited window, usually measured in weeks, and it is not designed for the case where somebody deliberately destroys things or where nobody notices for two months. If your business runs on 365, this is the single most likely gap in your recovery plan.
- Email, including shared mailboxes
- SharePoint and OneDrive files
- Teams conversations and files
- Retention set to what you actually need
Included, not extra
This comes with managed and co-managed IT.
Backup is not a product we sell beside fully managed and co-managed IT. It is part of both, because a support arrangement that cannot get your business back is not support.
Fully managed
All of it, in the monthly fee
Backups configured, running and monitored. Restores tested rather than assumed. Your recovery time measured and written down. The plan for who does what, kept current.
New systems get added to it as they arrive, so the plan does not quietly fall behind the business.
Co-managed
Designed with your IT person
Recovery design is one of the most common reasons businesses take on co-managed. It is specialist work, it is unforgiving of small mistakes, and it is a lot to carry alone.
Your person stays in charge of it. We bring the tooling, the testing discipline and a second set of eyes on the design.
On its own
Available either way
You do not have to be a client. Plenty of this starts as a one-off, usually a restore test on what you already have, and sometimes the honest finding is that it is fine.
The larger pieces, impact analysis and recovery facilities, are normally projects rather than monthly work.
Questions we get asked
The things owners actually want to know.
Pulled from the central library, tagged for this page. All questions and answers →
Related
Often taken alongside this.
When did you last restore something?
If the answer is never, that is the conversation. Half an hour, no charge, and we will tell you honestly whether what you have is enough.
Would rather write?
Send this and we will reply, usually the same business day. No call unless you want one.
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