Backup as a Service: a copy that has been restored
A backup never restored is an assumption. With Backup as a Service we arrange the copies, the retention and the off-site destination, and periodically carry out a real restore. You get a report of it, with the time it took.
In short
The four quantities that define the service
Anyone who can fill these four in per system has a backup. Anyone who cannot has a copy.
RPO
How much work you may lose
RTO
How long a restore may take
3-2-1
Copies, media, locations
1×
A restore that was carried out
What is included
Where the service starts and stops
Four parts, and the third is the one an attack runs aground on.
- Copies off siteA second destination at another location, so fire or theft does not take both copies. That is why a NAS beside the server is not a backup.
- Retention that is fixedHow long a copy stays is agreed per system, and that is not a setting someone later moves by accident.
- Kept immutableFor a period the copy cannot be changed or deleted, not even with administrator rights. That is exactly what ransomware tries and where it then runs aground.
- A restore that was carried outWe periodically restore something for real and measure how long it took. Without that measurement the recovery time is an estimate and not an agreement.
What goes with this
Backup sits beside recovery and beside the question of what may go down.
A backup that has been restored
Tell us which systems run and what must not be lost. You get a setup with retention periods, an off-site destination and a date for the first test restore.
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