Why backups fail when you need them
In most assessments, backup is where we find the widest gap between what an owner believes and what is true. The job was set up years ago. Its alerts go to an address nobody reads. It protects the server while ignoring Microsoft 365, laptops and any cloud accounting data. Nobody has restored anything from it since it was installed, so nobody knows how long a restore would take.
What can go wrong in a Duluth business
- Ransomware is still the most common reason for a full restore, and attackers look for backups first so they can delete them.
- One critical PC fails, such as the one running the warehouse management or shipping software, and the dock stops with it.
- Human error: a deleted customer folder, an overwritten price list, a sync that removed the original copy.
- Building problems in older office parks: a roof leak over the server closet, a burst water heater in the suite next door, a surge during a summer storm.
- Power outages after storms. Depending on the address, businesses in Duluth and Suwanee get power from Georgia Power or an electric membership cooperative, and restoration times vary from street to street.
Our backup design
- Everything that matters: servers, important workstations, Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams and the databases behind your business software.
- The 3-2-1 rule: your data exists three times, on at least two types of media, and at least once outside the building.
- Immutable storage that an attacker holding your passwords still can't delete or encrypt.
- Daily review by a person every business day, with failures fixed, not just logged.
- Scheduled test restores of individual files and whole systems, with the time recorded so you know your real recovery time.
Setting recovery targets
Two questions drive the design. How much recent work can you afford to re-enter? And how long can you be down? A distributor shipping same-day orders and a two-doctor practice will give different answers. So will a restaurant whose point-of-sale vendor already keeps sales data in the cloud. We set backup frequency and recovery method from your answers rather than a default setting.
Getting people working again
Recovered data only helps if staff can use it. The written plan names a decision-maker, sets the order systems return in, explains phone forwarding, where people work if the building is closed and how you tell customers. When staff use laptops and Microsoft 365, much of the work can carry on from home. For a warehouse, the plan also covers scanners, label printers and the shipping system, because orders can't go out without them. For servers you can't do without, we can keep a standby copy that can be started in the cloud if the original is lost.
Power protection
Battery backups on servers, firewalls and switches prevent the corrupted databases that brief outages cause. We size them for the load, monitor their health, configure automatic safe shutdown when an outage runs long, and swap batteries on a calendar rather than after one dies.
Reports you can read
Each quarter you get a short summary showing what was backed up, any failures and how they were fixed, and the results of the latest test restore. It is written for an owner or office manager, not an engineer. If your insurer or auditor asks how your data is protected, you have the answer on paper.
Retention and old records
How far back you can restore matters as much as how often you back up. A distributor may need last year's invoices for an audit, a clinic must keep patient records for years, and an accounting firm keeps prior returns. We set retention periods to match your legal and business needs, keep older copies on cheaper storage, and write the rules down so nobody has to guess.
Questions about backup & disaster recovery
Isn't a copy in the cloud enough?
It helps, but a cloud copy alone can be slow to restore in bulk, and sync tools can copy ransomware damage too. A local copy for speed plus a protected offsite copy covers both problems.
How can we be sure a restore will succeed?
By rehearsing it. Individual files are restored routinely, and a whole-system recovery is rehearsed every year at minimum, with the result and elapsed time written up for you.
