Business backup and disaster recovery
Protect business data and plan how critical systems will recover after an outage, accidental deletion or ransomware. CIS helps you define backup coverage, recovery priorities and restore testing.
CIS’s expertise has helped our business to grow without having to worry about unpredictable system outages & high maintenance costs. We’ve seen a huge increase in efficiency from working in a virtualised environment along with peace of mind that our systems are fully backed up at all times.
Andrew Grisdale, MD, Biokil Crown
Know what you need to recover
Backups give you recoverable copies of data. Disaster recovery brings together the systems, people and steps needed to resume work. We plan both around your business priorities.
That starts with your servers, applications, files and Microsoft 365 data. We identify what needs protection, how often to back it up, how long to keep copies and who checks for failures.
Your recovery time objective, or RTO, is the target time to restore a service. Your recovery point objective, or RPO, sets how much recent data you can afford to lose, measured in time. These targets guide the design and need to be tested.
We link the plan to IT support, supplier contacts and incident responsibilities.
Test the plan before you need it
A completed backup job does not prove your business can recover. Restore tests check what can be recovered, how long it takes and whether staff can use the restored systems. We help you identify gaps and follow through on the fixes.
Backup security matters too. Review administrator access, multifactor authentication and isolated or immutable copies. The NCSC’s ransomware-resistant backup principles explain the key considerations.
See how John Welch & Stammers combined cloud services with server image backup. For your business, bring your critical systems, current backup arrangements and latest restore results to an initial review.
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Backup & Disaster Recovery
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Practical advice on protecting business data and preparing for disruption.
Business backup and recovery questions
Answers about backup coverage, recovery targets and restore testing.
What is the difference between backup and disaster recovery?
A backup is a recoverable copy of data. Disaster recovery is the plan for restoring the systems, access and dependencies your people need to work after a serious disruption.
A useful plan identifies the services to restore first, who makes decisions and how recovered systems will be checked. Review both together through our backup and disaster recovery service.
How quickly could our business systems recover?
CIS helps you plan recovery around the systems your business needs first. Recovery time depends on the affected services, available backup copies, connectivity and the checks needed before staff can work safely.
We discuss the recovery time objective, meaning the target time to restore a service, and the recovery point objective, meaning the acceptable age of recovered data. A controlled restore test provides evidence against those targets. A backup completion message alone does not prove how quickly the business can recover.
How often should we test backup restores?
Test restores regularly, with the frequency based on how critical each system is and how often it changes. Include checks after significant changes to your systems or backup arrangements.
Record what was restored, how long it took and whether staff could use the recovered data. Assign any problems to an owner and retest after fixing them. A successful file restore alone does not prove that every business system can recover.
Do Microsoft 365 recovery features replace a backup plan?
Microsoft 365 includes recovery and retention features, but their scope and limits vary by service and configuration. Check whether they meet your requirements for accidental deletion, compromised accounts, retention and wider recovery.
Agree which mailboxes, files and sites need backup protection, how long recovery points should remain available and who will test restores. Discuss Microsoft 365 support alongside your backup and recovery arrangements. Our IaaS, PaaS and SaaS comparison explains how cloud responsibilities differ.
How can backup copies be protected from ransomware?
A backup needs protection from the same compromise that affects live systems. Review separate administrator access, multi-factor authentication, protected retention and suitable offline, isolated or immutable recovery copies.
Check monitoring and recovery procedures as well as the technology. Test that authorised staff can recover usable data when normal systems are unavailable. The NCSC’s ransomware-resistant backup principles provide a useful reference for the discussion.