Backup & Disaster Recovery

Business backup and disaster recovery for Cardiff and South Wales: daily backups watched by our team, and a plan for getting you working again when something goes wrong.

Backup and recovery

Your data back, your business working

Backup means keeping safe, separate copies of your data. Disaster recovery is the plan, and the means, to get your business working again after something goes badly wrong, whether that’s ransomware, a failed server, a fire or a deleted folder. You need both, and both are included in our managed IT support, from £40 per user per month + VAT.

Every business we support gets daily backups and a disaster recovery plan. Our team monitors the backups, so a failed job gets noticed and fixed, not discovered on the day you need it.

This page explains how good backup works, what Microsoft does and doesn’t do for you, and what belongs in a recovery plan, so you can judge any set-up, including ours.

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Daily backups

Your data copied every day, as standard.

Monitored by people

Our team watches the backups and deals with anything that fails.

A recovery plan

A written plan for getting your business working again.

In the monthly fee

Part of managed IT support, not an optional extra.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 needs its own backup

Many businesses assume Microsoft backs up their email and files. Microsoft does keep the service running, with several copies of your data across its datacentres, but that protects you against Microsoft’s problems, not yours.

Microsoft’s shared responsibility model says that, whatever kind of cloud service you use, your data, devices and user accounts remain your responsibility. If someone deletes a folder, ransomware encrypts files that then sync to OneDrive, or a leaver’s account is removed too soon, putting it right is down to you.

The built-in safety nets are short. Email emptied from Deleted Items can be recovered for 14 days by default, 30 at most. SharePoint keeps deleted items for 93 days. When a licence is removed, the mailbox is kept for 30 days, then permanently deleted. Microsoft even sells its own backup service for Microsoft 365 separately, which tells you retention and backup aren’t the same thing.

So we treat Microsoft 365 like any other system: included in your daily backup. More on our Microsoft 365 support.

The 3-2-1 idea

Three copies, two kinds, one somewhere else

The simplest test of any backup set-up is the 3-2-1 idea:

3 copies of your data: the live copy and two backups.
2 different kinds of storage, so one fault can’t take out everything.
1 copy away from the office, so a fire, flood or burglary doesn’t take the backups with the originals.

It’s a rule of thumb rather than a standard, and for cloud systems the “kinds of storage” are separate services rather than disks and tapes. The principle holds: never rely on one copy in one place. The NCSC gives similar advice, recommending multiple copies using different backup solutions and storage locations.

Ransomware

Backups are a target

Criminals know a good backup means you won’t pay a ransom, so they look for backups and try to delete or encrypt them first. The NCSC warns that ransomware actively targets backups. A backup drive left plugged into the server is likely to be encrypted along with everything else.

The defences, in general terms:

Offline or offsite copies that aren’t permanently connected to your network.
Immutable copies, which can’t be changed or deleted for a set period, even by someone with admin access.
Separate sign-ins for the backup system, with multi-factor authentication, so one stolen password doesn’t hand over your backups too.
Older versions kept, because ransomware can sit unnoticed for a while, and the latest backup may already be affected.

Backups are the last line of defence. The first lines are on our cyber security page.

Testing

Only a backup once it restores

A backup job that reports “success” proves the job ran. It doesn’t prove you can get your data back, quickly and in a usable state. The only way to know is to restore something and check it.

That means restoring sample files and mailboxes, and checking that a whole system, such as a server or your accounts software, can be brought back and actually opens. It also means timing it, because a restore that takes hours rather than minutes changes your plan. Testing restores is part of how we look after your backups, and the NCSC recommends the same: know how to restore, and check regularly that it works.

RTO and RPO

Two questions in plain English

Recovery plans use two terms worth knowing. Neither has a standard answer; both depend on your business.

Recovery point (RPO): how much work can you afford to lose? If your accounts system is backed up overnight and fails late in the afternoon, everything entered since the last backup is gone and has to be re-entered. If that’s unacceptable, it needs backing up more often.

Recovery time (RTO): how long can you manage without it? Some systems can be down for a day with little harm. Others, such as email for a firm with a completion due, start costing you almost immediately. The faster you need something back, the more the set-up costs.

We agree these with you for each important system and write them into your plan, rather than quoting numbers that don’t fit how you work.

The plan

What a disaster recovery plan should contain

A recovery plan is a short, practical document that someone other than your IT provider could follow under pressure. A useful one covers six things, and it’s worth asking any IT provider to show you yours, along with the date of the last test restore.

Who does what

Who decides it’s a disaster, who calls whom, and contact details for staff, IT and key suppliers, kept somewhere that doesn’t depend on your systems.

What comes first

Your systems in order of priority, with the recovery time and recovery point agreed for each.

Where the backups are

What’s backed up, where the copies are held, and how each one is restored.

How people keep working

Working from home, Microsoft 365 in a browser, phones diverted, and what to do about card payments.

Who to tell

Clients, staff and your insurer. If personal data is affected, reportable breaches go to the ICO within 72 hours of you becoming aware, where feasible.

When it was tested

A plan nobody has rehearsed fails on details. Review it whenever your systems change, and at least once a year.

Questions

Backup and recovery: FAQs

Are backups included in your IT support?

Yes. Daily backups and a disaster recovery plan are part of our managed IT support, from £40 per user per month + VAT, and our team monitors the backups. See what’s included.

Doesn’t Microsoft already back up Microsoft 365?

Microsoft keeps the service resilient, but its shared responsibility model leaves your data and accounts as your responsibility. Built-in recovery is time-limited: email emptied from Deleted Items is recoverable for 14 days by default, and deleted SharePoint items for 93 days. A separate backup covers what those don’t.

What’s the difference between backup and disaster recovery?

Backup is having copies of your data. Disaster recovery is getting the business working again: which systems come back first, where people work in the meantime and who needs telling. You can have good backups and still be stuck for days without a plan.

How often should a business back up its data?

At least daily for most businesses, which is our standard. Systems that change constantly, or where losing a day’s work would really hurt, may need more frequent backups. The right answer comes from your recovery point: how much work you could afford to redo.

How long would it take to get us running again?

It depends on what’s been lost. Restoring a deleted file is usually quick; rebuilding a server or recovering from ransomware takes far longer. We won’t quote a figure without looking at your systems. Instead, we agree recovery targets for each important system and set up the backups to meet them.

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