Backup & recovery

Server and workstation recovery

Hardware failure, a lost device or a damaged server can interrupt access to essential information. Identify the systems and data your team relies on, then plan how those systems would be recovered and who would coordinate the response.

Managed and offsite backup options

We offer online incremental backup options and remote management of onsite backup jobs. Discuss the appropriate storage location, schedule, monitoring responsibilities and retention requirements for your environment.

Restore testing and data archiving

Restore testing helps confirm that backed-up data can be recovered. Agree how recovery will be checked and documented. Archiving older data may also help manage growing storage requirements, subject to your access and retention needs.

Define what the business needs to recover

Start by listing the information and applications your team uses to deliver work. Consider where they are stored, who owns them and what would happen if they became unavailable. A backup conversation should cover the business process as well as the server or device containing the data.

Different systems may have different priorities. A shared reference folder and a system needed for daily operations may not require the same recovery approach. Discuss the acceptable interruption and the amount of recent work the business could afford to recreate before selecting a technical solution.

Make recovery expectations explicit

Two useful questions are how quickly a system needs to be available again and how much recent data could be lost without creating an unacceptable problem. These are planning targets that help guide design; they are not an automatic recovery guarantee. Achievable outcomes depend on the environment, agreed solution and the incident itself.

Record the order in which systems should be recovered and any dependencies between them. Include the people who need to make decisions, the information needed to contact suppliers and the checks required before the system can be used again.

Check coverage and responsibility

Data may sit in several places, including workstations, servers and hosted applications. Confirm what each backup arrangement covers instead of assuming every service is included. Identify any information that falls outside the current scope and discuss whether it needs a separate solution.

Backup schedules, retention periods, monitoring and recovery permissions should be agreed together. The appropriate arrangement depends on the volume of information, the way it changes and your operational requirements. Responsibility for responding to a failed backup needs to be clear.

Use testing to improve the plan

A successful backup job is useful evidence, but a recovery exercise answers a different question: can the required information or system be restored in a way the business can use? Agree a suitable test scope, document the result and review any assumptions that did not hold.

Changes to applications, staff responsibilities or infrastructure can affect recovery. Revisit the plan when those changes occur. Our practical backup-planning guide gives business owners a starting point for gathering the information needed for this discussion.