As technology experts and digital transformation specialists, we get asked one question a lot โ what is data backup and disaster recovery?ย ย
Weโve created this guide to answer that question, as we as other frequently asked questions around data backup and disaster recovery (or BDR). In it, weโll cover:ย ย
- What backup and recovery actually is
- Why itโs so important
- What backup and recovery methods you can use
- What a good backup and recovery service looks like
Letโs look at the first question โ the one that brought you here โ what is BDR?ย
What is backup and disaster recovery?ย ย
Data backup and disaster recovery is the name for a series of processes that safeguard a company’s data, systems, and technologies when something goes wrong.ย
While backup and recovery are separate processes, they work in tandem to perform a single important function โ keeping a business safe in the event of a disaster.ย ย
The first part, backup, is when a company makes a copy of its data and stores it in a safe place. The second, recovery, is the process a company can follow to retrieve this data, at a momentโs notice.ย ย
There are different ways you can do this (more on that below) but, regardless of the method, there are a few things that vital to any successful BDR strategy:ย
- First, the backed-up data must be stored in an entirely separate place from the original copy (most use a backup server or the cloud for this).
- Second, the backup copy should be immutable, meaning it canโt be changed after it is created.
- Finally, the backup copy must be immutable. This means it cannot be altered in any way after it is created. This protects your business from cybercrime (such as ransomware attacks) and bad actors (such as a disgruntled employee).ย ย ย
What is the purpose of backup and recovery?ย ย
The purpose of backup and recovery is to ensure one simple thing: business continuity in case something goes wrong.ย ย
While the specifics vary per industry, generally, businesses have a backup and recovery plan in place to protect against cybercrime, stay compliant with government legislation, and ensure user error doesnโt bring their business to a grinding halt.
After all, prolonged downtime is every business ownerโs worst nightmare. Every day your business cannot operate, youโll lose revenue, deals, and customer trust.ย ย
Common data backup and recovery methodsย
To understand how backup and recovery works, we need to look at each component separately. The 3 most common methods for backup are full, incremental, and differential. Each comes with its own strengths and weaknesses:ย
- Full: Backing up all historic data, every single time. This offers complete protection but requires a lot of storage, processing power, and time.
- Incremental: Saving changes made since the last backup, whether full or incremental. This is faster and more efficient for storage, but recovery time can be slow.
- Differential: Saving changes made sense the last full back up only. This makes recovery quicker and tends to use less storage.
Now letโs look at recovery. The three most common recovery methods are file level, system level, and bare metal:ย
- File-level: This lets you restore individual files and folders. Itโs usually best for accidental deletions caused by user error.
- System-level: This is deeper and more appropriate when thereโs a major failure. It lets a business restore entire systems, including apps and settings.
- Bare-metal: This is the most extreme use-case for recovery and is used to remediate ransomware attacks or hardware destruction. It allows an organisation to fully restore a system or machine, โlike newโ.ย
Why adoption rates for backup and recovery are lowย
A good way to understand backup and recovery adoption rates (especially in SMEs) is to think about contents insurance for homeowners. Letโs imagine there are two people, each are moving in to a house they just bought:ย ย
Homeowner Aย ย
Does not buy contents insurance the day they move in, because they can “do it next week.” But then their car breaks down, which is a problem that needs to be solved today, pushing contents insurance to next month. Two weeks later, the washing machine breaks, an unexpected bill comes through the door, and contents insurance is deprioritised yet again.ย
Homeowner Bย
Buys contents insurance on day one, as they know that life is busy and unpredictable. They deal with the same โtoday problemsโ as homeowner A but pay a small monthly fee to ensure they have coverage throughout.ย ย ย
Then the worst happens โ a burglary. Homeowner A loses thousands of pounds of possessions and spends time and money replacing them. Homeowner B is inconvenienced but saves thousands by claiming through their insurance.ย ย
The difference? Both valued contents insurance highly when the worst happened, but only one valued it before the worst happened. To put it simply, homeowner B understood the opportunity-cost better.ย
This is UK backup and recovery adoption rates in a nutshell. Companies prioritise business-as-usual (โtoday problemsโ) over long-term planning; they misjudge the opportunity-cost.ย ย
Backup and disaster recovery services โ what does good look like?ย
By now, you may be wondering if you have the time or resources to do this in house. If not, thatโs okay. Most businesses donโt!ย ย
To grow your business, you need to focus on your customers and services, not on cyber resilience or BDR. Like Homeowner B, smart business leaders tend to use a backup and data recovery service, instead.ย
Weโve been helping businesses innovate and solve problems with technology for a long time โ from virtualisation and cybersecurity, through to data backup and disaster recovery.ย ย
From this experience, we know what a great backup and disaster recovery service should look like. It should:ย ย
- Protect your business-critical data
- Encrypt and secure your data (whether on-premises or cloud-based)
- Have a 99% backup success rate
- Have guaranteed response times of 15 minutes (or less)
- Include transparent pricing up-front
- Be priced on usage (per-terabyte-per-month) so you can budget in advance and forecast costs easily
- Include end-to-end service for hardware, storage, and peopleย ย
Want help with data backup and recovery?ย
We offer enterprise grade backup and archiving and a world-class Microsoft 365 backup and eDiscovery service.ย
We start by understanding your business needs and tailor a support plan that keeps your business safe and remediates downtime, should the worst happen.ย ย
Learn more about our enterprise backup and archiving or Microsoft 365 backup services by following the relevant links or get in touch to find out more.
