File backup is not always enough
If a company has accounting software, a database, domain controller, ERP or remote access, copying folders is not enough. You need to know how to restore the whole service.
That is why the backup plan is built per system: what returns first, what depends on what and how long the business can wait.
- Files and shared folders
- Databases
- Virtual machines
- Router and firewall configurations
- Cloud email and documents
RPO and RTO in business language
RPO means how much data the company can lose. RTO means how long the system may stay down. Once management answers those questions, the technical solution becomes precise.
Daily backup is not the same as hourly backup. Local restore is not the same as offsite recovery after fire or theft.
Protecting backup from attacks
Ransomware often looks for backup first. If the backup server uses the same administrator accounts and is always visible from the whole network, the attacker can delete the copies too.
That is why separate credentials, isolated location, immutable or at least restricted copies and regular backup-job monitoring matter.
What to look for in a report
A good backup report must show what succeeded, what failed, how long copying takes, how much space remains and when the last restore test was performed.
Without a restore date, backup status is incomplete.