Backups we restore, not just backups we take.
Servers, workstations and Microsoft 365 backed up offsite for New Jersey businesses, with copies ransomware cannot touch and a restore test on a schedule. We can tell you the date of the last one.
What is backed up, and where it goes.
Servers
Full image backups of every server, physical or virtual, several times a day, so a failed machine comes back as it was rather than being rebuilt from installers.
Microsoft 365
Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams backed up separately from Microsoft, with point-in-time restore of a single message, a folder or a whole mailbox.
Workstations that hold data
The CAD station, the bookkeeper's PC, the machine that runs the shop software. If data lives on it, it is backed up; if it does not, we move the data somewhere that is.
Offsite and protected
A local copy for fast restores and an offsite copy for disasters, with versions that cannot be altered or deleted for a set period. Ransomware that encrypts the server cannot encrypt the backup.
Watched every day
Failed and missed jobs are tickets, not emails nobody reads. A backup that silently stopped in March is the most common disaster we are called in to fix.
Two numbers you should know.
How much work can you afford to lose, and how long can you be down. For most of our clients the answers are a few hours and one business day, and the backup schedule and recovery plan are built to those numbers rather than to a vendor's defaults. Yours may be different, and we write them down with you.
What a recovery looks like.
A deleted file is back in minutes. A failed server is running again the same day, on replacement hardware or temporarily in the cloud. A ransomware event means isolating machines, rebuilding from the protected copies, restoring email and the line-of-business system first, and a written account of what happened for your insurer. We have done each of these, and we rehearse them.
Questions we get
Does Microsoft back up our Microsoft 365 data?
Not in the way most people assume. Microsoft keeps deleted items for a limited retention window and protects against its own infrastructure failing, but it does not protect you from a deleted mailbox after retention expires, a ransomware-encrypted OneDrive synced to the cloud, or a departed employee who emptied a SharePoint library. A separate backup of Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams covers that.
How often do you test restores?
On a schedule, and the date and result are recorded. A file-level restore is tested monthly and a full server recovery at least twice a year. Ask any provider for the date of their last restore test; if they cannot answer, they have not done one.
What happens if we get ransomware?
The infected machines are isolated, the backup copies that ransomware cannot reach are used to rebuild, and we restore in the order that gets the business working: email and the line-of-business server first, archives last. Having tested the restore beforehand is what turns a two-week outage into a one-day one.
Is backup included in the managed plan, or extra?
Included. Server, workstation data and Microsoft 365 backups, offsite storage, monitoring of failed jobs and the restore tests are all part of the monthly rate. Very large data sets are the only thing priced separately, and we tell you before that applies.
When was your last restore test?
If you do not know, that is the answer. Thirty minutes and we will tell you what you have and what you are missing.