Backup and Disaster Recovery (Services)

While cloud computing is king right now, most organizations still have local resources that need to be protected. The most important of these are mission critical server environments. Making sure these systems are protected requires a few key components such as:

• Bare-Metal Backups: This backup type allows your IT team the ability to rebuild your server exactly as it was as of the previous backup. This is critical for massive losses or events.
• File Level Backups: File level backups are typically used in the event of user error such as accidental deletion. This allows you to roll back individual files and folders instead of the entire system.
• Application Backups: In addition to your files and the system as a whole, applications should be addressed individually. Programs such as MSSQL and Exchange require specific parameters to ensure your data can be recovered.

Regardless of how you achieve backups for the above systems, it is always important that these backups live locally and offsite. Additionally, any good solution should provide the option to “spin-up” your backups as a temporary server in the event of a massive failure.

As crazy as this sounds, most cloud providers do not backup customer data. Customer backups are either an add-on or backups are the responsibility of the customer. A good example of this is Microsoft 365. While they have multiple layers of redundancy throughout their infrastructure, they openly state within their documentation that user level backups are not provided. A good partner will make sure to integrate cloud-to-cloud backups to make sure that your online data is protected by a third party just like your local data.

This is a growing segment for many organizations. The primary reasons we are seeing an increase in small systems is 2 fold:

• Core systems moving to the cloud: This leaves small portions of networks that are still local to the main office. Proprietary and legacy software are good examples of this.
• Decentralization: As more employees move to work-from-home and small field offices, mini networks pop-up to deal with local or regional needs.

Large scale backup solutions are typically overkill for these types of needs so having a more dynamic backup solution will provide the flexibility to backup what you need, where you need it.

While this is easily one of the most important backup types, it is also often forgotten. Secondary systems are anything that is not typically included in a standard backup plan but is critical to fast and effective system restoration. Examples of these systems are firewall configurations, website backups, phone system configurations, wireless network configurations, and so much more. In a disaster recovery scenario, speed is the name of the game. Spending days rebuilding your phone system or your firewall can be days of unnecessary downtime so make sure to discuss these systems with your trusted partner.