Backup and Continuity
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Backup keeps copies of your data somewhere safe, and disaster recovery keeps your systems running when the place they live in is down. The two are sold together and confused constantly, and telling them apart is the biggest decision in this category.
- 29 companies on the shelf
- Coverage
Buyer's checklist
Eight questions that decide this purchase
Think these through before you buy. Answer what you can and your quote comes back faster. Skip what you cannot, and we will work through it with you.
- 01
For each critical system, how long can it be down, and how much recent work can you afford to lose?
- 02
What does an hour of downtime cost for each of those systems?
- 03
Do you need copies of your data off site, or the ability to run applications from the provider's cloud during an outage?
- 04
What has to be covered: virtual machines, physical servers, laptops, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, an older IBM platform?
- 05
In a real event, who runs the failover and the return home: your team or the provider?
- 06
Which rules govern retention and location, such as HIPAA, PCI or GDPR, and in which regions may the data sit?
- 07
Will you keep your current backup software, add replication to it, or replace it?
- 08
How often will you test a recovery, and who signs off that it worked?
No company matches every box you checked
That usually means the combination is rare, not impossible. Clear a filter, or add the service and we will go find who can do it.
Capabilities come from published supplier material. We confirm them for your addresses before anything is quoted.
More on what it is
Backup as a service, or BaaS, means a provider stores and manages copies of your data away from your site. After a loss you restore files, mailboxes or whole servers from those copies. Disaster recovery as a service, or DRaaS, goes further. The provider keeps standby infrastructure ready, so your applications can run from its cloud while your own environment is out. Switching over is called failover. Coming home afterward is failback. Backup gets your data back. Disaster recovery keeps you working in the meantime.
Two numbers define what you need. The recovery time objective, RTO, is how long a system can be down before the business is hurt. The recovery point objective, RPO, is how much recent work you can afford to lose, measured in time. Tighter targets call for more continuous copying and cost more, so set them system by system. Work out what an hour of downtime costs for each one first. Set targets before you know that, and you will over-protect some systems and under-protect the ones that matter.
Ransomware changed what a good backup looks like, because attackers now go after the backups first. An immutable backup is locked so that nobody, including an administrator, can alter or delete it for a set period.
Cloud email and file suites are the usual blind spot. Microsoft 365 runs on shared responsibility: Microsoft keeps the service up, and recovering your content after a deletion, a mistake or an attack is largely your job. Microsoft's own service agreement recommends keeping a regular backup of what you store there.
One policy should cover everything you depend on: virtual machines, physical servers, laptops and cloud applications. Older platforms such as IBM AS/400 or AIX need a provider that supports them by name. And a recovery plan is a living document. One that is written once and never reviewed or tested goes stale without anyone noticing.
Who needs it
- You keep business records in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace and have no independent copy of them.
- You have no second site, or only a partial one.
- You run a mix of virtual and physical servers, perhaps an older IBM system, and all of it has to be covered.
- You answer to a regulation that dictates how long data is kept and where it may live.
- Your backups still depend on tapes or disks that a person carries off site.
Every business with data needs backup. Fewer need full disaster recovery. If you could work for a day or two from restored files while servers are rebuilt, backup alone may be enough. If an hour offline stops revenue, you need more.
Signs you need it
- Backups do not finish inside their window, or a restore takes far longer than anyone expected.
- Nobody has tested a recovery, or can say how often it should be tested.
- Nobody can state, in hours, how long each critical system can be down.
- Anyone with administrator access could change or delete your backups.
- The continuity plan was written years ago and has not been opened since.
How IT Raven helps
Add Backup and Disaster Recovery to your quote list and tell us what you run and how long you can afford to be without it. If you do not have recovery targets yet, that is normal, and several providers will help you set them as the first step. A person takes your requirements to the backup and recovery providers in our 500+ partner network and sorts them on what disqualifies: the platforms they support, the regions and standards you are bound to, and whether they will run the failover for you or hand you the controls.
Recovery touches its neighbors. A recovery site can be a provider's cloud, which is Cloud and IaaS, or your own equipment in Colocation. Protection against the attack that makes you need the backup is Managed Security. We quote them together when they belong together.
We stay on one thread through the design, the first full backup and the first recovery test, because a plan that has never been tested is a guess. The same team is here for the next test and the renewal.
How buying works
The store is the easy part. Staying on the account is the job.
Anyone can show you logos. The reason to buy here is what happens on install night, and on the ticket you open nine months later.
- 01
Build your quote list
Add services and companies as you shop. No form stands between you and the shelf.
- 02
We bring back real options
A person shops the bench against your addresses, then walks you through what fits and what does not.
- 03
We handle the order and install
Paperwork, site survey, install dates, cutover night. You get one thread, not five vendors.
- 04
We stay on your account
Same team for moves, adds, tickets and the next renewal. That is the part everyone else drops.