The Backup Basics: A Real-World Guide to Business Continuity
“You don’t rise to the level of your expectations. You fall to the level of your preparation.” – Archilochus
Let’s get something straight—after decades in ICT, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt: a solid backup routine can be the line between a temporary hiccup… and closing your business doors for good.
There’s no silver bullet. No one-size-fits-all solution. And I’m not here to sell you anything. What I can offer is the knowledge to help you choose a solution that works for your business—regardless of brand, vendor, or shiny sales pitch.
A Glossary for the Non-Jargon Enthusiast
“Oh ICT with their acronyms. Tis an embuggerance of a thing.” – Me, this morning
In tech, we love a good acronym. But let’s be honest, many terms get thrown around like confetti, and half of them are just marketing lingo disguised as technical prowess. Here’s a jargon-free glossary to help you understand the concepts, not the brand names.
(This section remains mostly the same—it’s clear, clever, and extremely useful as-is. Only light copyediting is needed here.)
Planning for Backups: Ask the Right Questions First
“Data wants to be anthropomorphised.” – Some guy on the internet
Before you jump into backup solutions, step back and plan. These are the questions that should shape your strategy—answer them honestly and realistically:
1. What’s Actually Important to Me?
“If you were running from a burning house, what would you grab?”
For most people, it’s the photos, the documents, the irreplaceable things. In business, it’s corporate knowledge—processes, financial records, client data. If you know what’s worth saving, you know what you need to protect.
2. How Long Can I Survive Without a Tool?
“You don’t know the value of a hammer until you’ve lost it.”
How long could your business function without email? Your CRM? Your payroll system? Some tools are mission-critical, and your backup strategy should reflect that.
3. How Long Can I Survive Without This Data?
“It’s not about if things go wrong. It’s about how long you can afford for them to stay wrong.”
Quantify the cost of downtime—not just in dollars, but in reputation, customer experience, and opportunity lost. Would it be cheaper to invest in a second server than to lose a day’s worth of business?
4. Who Needs to Know When Things Go Wrong?
“People will find out. You can either look honest or look shifty.”
Communication is part of your disaster recovery plan. Know who to tell, what to say, and how long it’ll take to get back online. And for heaven’s sake—test your recovery process before you need it.
Building a Backup System That Works
“Can we build it? Mmm, yeah I think so.” – Lofty from Bob the Builder
Now that you’ve got your specs, let’s design your system. Here’s the golden rule of thumb:
Three copies
Two different media
One recovery point
This setup allows you to recover:
- A single version of a file
- A file from the past
- All files from a particular point in time
Versioning Saves Lives (or at Least Projects)
“Hooray for yesterday’s copy.”
Imagine a file gets corrupted. You go to the backup. Corrupted. Second backup? Also toast. But—your cloud provider offers versioning. You retrieve a clean version from the day before and save the day.
Use versioning wherever you can—cloud services, file repositories, even external drives. If your systems offer snapshots or rollback features, use them.
Snake Oil and How to Avoid It
“You can fool all the people some of the time…” – Abraham Lincoln (allegedly)
No backup system is set-and-forget. If you’re not regularly reviewing logs and alerts, then you’re not backing up—you’re hoping you’re backing up.
Be wary of these pitfalls:
- Workstation backups for large teams: inefficient and unreliable.
- Backup ≠ Replication: If it only gives you the current state, it’s not backup.
- DR ≠ BC: Disaster recovery should rebuild your systems. Business continuity should keep them running.
- Uptime math: Know the weakest link in your infrastructure.
“If your ISP guarantees 95% uptime and your cloud provider guarantees 99.999%, your real uptime is 94.999%.”
Don’t let numbers fool you—do the math.
Real-World Examples
“Begin at the beginning… and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” – Lewis Carroll
???? Real Estate Kerblakistan
Business Size: 6 employees across 3 business units
Main Risk: Coffee on workstations, rogue deletions
Solution:
- Cloud CRM with built-in versioning
- Rotating USB drive backups of key documents
Recovery Plan:
Buy new laptops → restore from backups → resume work
Estimated Downtime: 6 hours
Productivity Lost: 14 man-hours
???? Lizard Spock Creative
Business Type: Media company with two international offices
Main Risk: Losing asset libraries, remote access needs
Solution:
- Shared cloud storage with admin controls
- NAS backup to USB
- Centralized file-saving policies
Recovery Plan:
New workstations → USB restore of libraries → cloud sync for admin
Estimated Downtime: 2–3 days
Productivity Lost: 2 weeks of degraded service
Closing Thoughts
This isn’t a comprehensive backup bible. But if you walk away understanding why backup and recovery matters—and how to start building a system that works for you—then I’ve done my job.
Got questions? Let’s talk. We’d be happy to help you build a backup strategy that fits your business, your workflow, and your budget.