How to choose managed backup and disaster recovery services

Decide how much work you can afford to repeat

If an important system stops working, ask what the team can get back and how soon it can resume work.

Agree who chooses what to protect, checks backups, runs restores and acts when a test fails.

Read the source: AWS Backup: Restore testing.

Start with the work that must continue

List the systems and information people need to serve customers, take payments, coordinate work and make decisions. For each, decide how much recent work the business could afford to repeat and how long an interruption would be tolerable. Treat those limits as targets for the supplier to demonstrate.

Include connected systems. Restoring a database may not restore the documents, access settings and external connections needed to use it. Identify who can supply those pieces and how they would be brought together.

Understand the proposed protection

Cloud backup services should specify the accounts, files, applications and history included. Ask where copies are kept, who can delete them and how the supplier checks that the expected information was captured. Clarify retention and the cost of keeping older versions.

Microsoft 365 backup services need the same scrutiny. Name the covered workloads and account types, and ask how an individual item and a larger collection would be recovered. Confirm which shared files, mailboxes and collaboration records the plan covers.

Ask for a restore demonstration

AWS Backup distinguishes backup activity from restore testing, which evaluates whether a recovery can run and records its duration. Its product-specific documentation is a useful example of why a successful copy is only part of the operating picture.

For an illustrative acceptance exercise, select a representative record and recover it into a controlled location. Have someone who uses that information confirm it is complete and usable. Check the relevant access and connected work, and record the elapsed time and any manual steps.

A test should leave a usable recovery procedure. State which parts were demonstrated and which remain assumptions. Time a full workflow recovery separately from a file restore.

Separate monitoring from incident responsibility

Backup monitoring services may notify you about a failed job. Disaster recovery services should explain who coordinates a wider recovery, which service hours apply, how decisions are approved and what additional charges can arise.

Business continuity IT services should also account for the people and temporary working arrangements needed during an interruption. Decide who tells staff where to work and who communicates with customers. Software recovery and business coordination need to meet in one plan.

Review the arrangement as systems change

New accounts, changed applications and staff departures can alter what is protected. Include a review schedule and an owner for updating the inventory. Keep the business's access and recovery instructions available if the usual supplier contact is unavailable.

AI App Studio can help map the systems and recovery handovers your business depends on. Book a call with the work you need to keep moving and the systems behind it.