Backup and recovery basics for growing companies
A backup is not a strategy until someone has restored from it. Growing companies need clear coverage, tested restores, and a defined owner when recovery is required.
Updated 2026-08-16
Backup is not the same as recovery
Many offices discover at the worst moment that backups were incomplete, untested, or sitting on the same system that failed. The question is not “do we have backups?” It is “what did we last restore successfully?”
Managed oversight exists to keep that question answered in ordinary time, not during an outage.
What to verify
Scope: workstations, servers, Microsoft 365 data, line-of-business systems. Frequency: how often jobs run. Isolation: whether copies can survive ransomware on the primary environment. Ownership: who runs a restore and how long it should take.
Insurance questionnaires increasingly ask these same points. Operational truth and paperwork should match.
Where this sits in the plans
Backup and disaster recovery management appears in the Service Catalog. Depth varies by plan. Projects may still be required for a major redesign of backup architecture.
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Questions on this topic
Short answers for buyers comparing options.
Is Microsoft 365 backed up by Microsoft alone?
Microsoft provides service continuity for the platform. Retention and recovery needs for deleted data and business continuity often require additional backup strategy. Ask specifically about mailbox and SharePoint recovery expectations.
How often should restores be tested?
Often enough that the last successful test is recent and documented. Exact cadence depends on risk and system criticality. Untested backups are a liability.
Want this applied to your environment?
Tell us how the business runs. We will map the model without a long pitch.