“We have backups” is not the same as “we can recover”

Almost every business owner will tell you they have backups. Far fewer can tell you how long it would take to be back in business after losing a server, or whether the last backup would even open. The difference between those two answers is the difference between an inconvenience and a crisis.

A backup is only a copy

Recovery is the real goal. A backup proves nothing until someone has restored from it. Backups fail quietly: a job stops running, a folder is left out, storage fills up, or a ransomware infection reaches the backup too. You usually find out at the worst possible moment.

Three numbers to know

• What is covered. Servers, workstations, cloud email, and files in cloud applications are different things. Many businesses assume the cloud service they use is backing them up. In most cases, you are responsible for protecting that data yourself.
• How far back you can go. Retention determines whether you can restore yesterday’s version or last quarter’s. Some problems, such as quietly deleted files or slow corruption, are not noticed for weeks.
• How long recovery takes. Restoring a few files may take minutes. Rebuilding a server or an office can take days. Decide what your business can tolerate, then check whether your setup can meet it.

Questions to ask your IT provider

• When was the last full restore test, and what was the result?
• Are backups stored somewhere an attacker on our network cannot reach or delete?
• Which systems are not backed up, and why?
• If our main office were unusable tomorrow, how would we work, and how fast?
• Who is alerted when a backup fails, and how quickly do we hear about it?

Make it routine

Good recovery planning is boring, and that is the point. Backups run on a schedule, failures raise an alert, restores are tested on a calendar, and the results are written down. Pair that with a short recovery plan that lists priorities: which systems come back first, who is in charge, and who tells your clients what is happening.

If you cannot answer the questions above with confidence, that is useful information. It means the next step is a review, not a new product.

Not sure where your business stands? Request a technology assessment.