Backup means taking a copy of your data. Disaster recovery means planning how quickly, and from which point, the business will resume after an outage. The two complement each other but are not the same thing.
The 3-2-1 rule
Keep at least three copies of your data, on two different storage media, with one copy off-site. To protect against ransomware, at least one copy should be immutable or disconnected from the network.
RPO and RTO
- RPO (Recovery Point Objective): the maximum data loss you can accept. With hourly backups, RPO is at most one hour.
- RTO (Recovery Time Objective): the maximum acceptable time for a system to be running again.
Both values should be set for each system together with the business units. The acceptable time for the ERP is not the same as for an archive file server.
An untested backup is not a backup
Restore tests should be scheduled and their results recorded. The disaster recovery plan should also be exercised through regular drills, with gaps fixed before the next drill.
Need help with this topic?
Let us understand your current situation and agree the right approach together.