Recovery you've already rehearsed

What we find when we check backups

Backup and disaster recovery is often the weakest part of a new client's setup. The software was installed years ago. Failure alerts go to someone who left. The server is covered, but Microsoft 365, laptops and the cloud accounting system are not. Sometimes the backup is an external drive that has been plugged into the same machine for years, so the first ransomware infection would scramble the backup too.

What causes data loss for Marietta businesses

• Ransomware and stolen accounts. The most common reason a small firm needs a full restore. Attackers hunt for backups first and try to wipe them before they encrypt anything.
• Worn-out hardware. Server drives, storage units and old desktops fail, usually at a bad moment.
• Ordinary mistakes. A misplaced folder, an overwritten workbook or a sync conflict that wipes the good version.
• Storms and power. Georgia summer thunderstorms and the occasional winter ice storm bring down lines across Cobb County. Inside the city, power comes from Marietta Power; elsewhere it's Georgia Power or Cobb EMC. Restoration times differ by provider and street, and an office may lose power for minutes or for a day.
• Building trouble. Water from a failed sprinkler line, smoke from a neighbor's fire or a theft can destroy the server and its backup drive together.

Records you're required to keep

Some Marietta businesses have to keep records for years, not weeks. Georgia generally requires health care providers to keep patient records for at least ten years. Law firms keep client files long after a matter closes. Defense contractors need to retain contract data and security records. A backup with 30 days of history doesn't meet those needs. We set retention by data type so the right records stay recoverable for as long as you must keep them.

How we build it

• Full coverage. Servers, key workstations, Microsoft 365 mail, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams, and line-of-business databases.
• Several copies. An on-site copy for speed and a cloud copy far from Cobb County, in line with the 3-2-1 rule of three copies, two media types and one off the premises.
• Locked against attackers. Immutable or offline backups that can't be deleted or encrypted, even by someone holding a stolen admin password.
• Checked daily. A person reviews backup results every business day, and failures are fixed rather than logged and ignored.
• Restores tested. Scheduled test recoveries of single files and entire servers are timed and logged, giving you a real recovery time rather than a guess.

Disaster recovery means getting people working

Restoring data is only half the job. The written plan names a decision maker, a fallback place to work, the phone rerouting steps, the order systems are brought back and the way clients or patients will hear from you. If your team already carries laptops and uses cloud email and phones, a closed office may barely slow them down. We prove that with a dry run rather than assuming it.

If you can't afford more than a few hours of downtime, we can keep standby copies of critical servers in the cloud, ready to start quickly. For many smaller offices, a strong offsite backup and a practiced restore process are enough. We recommend what fits the risk and the budget.

Keeping equipment powered

Brownouts and surges from Cobb County storms quietly kill hardware. Each server, firewall and network switch gets a UPS sized for its load. We monitor those units, configure graceful shutdown for extended outages and swap aging batteries on a schedule. Dull work, yet it saves databases from corruption.

Questions about backup & disaster recovery