Recovery you can count on, not hope for

Backups that only look healthy

In new client reviews, backups are often the part of the setup that looks fine and isn't. The job runs every night but has failed quietly for months. It covers the server but not Microsoft 365. The alerts go to a former employee. Or the only copy is a USB drive plugged into the server it's protecting, where ransomware would reach both. No one is to blame. Backups are simply easy to set up and forget.

What actually causes recoveries here

• Ransomware and account takeover. The most common reason a firm needs a full restore. Attackers look for backups and try to delete them before they encrypt anything.
• Equipment failure. Servers, storage devices and firewalls wear out, often without much warning.
• Everyday slips. Someone drags a matter folder into the wrong place, overwrites last quarter's numbers or empties a shared folder that OneDrive then empties everywhere.
• Building events. In a shared tower, a sprinkler leak on the floor above, a water main break, a fire alarm evacuation or planned electrical work can shut your suite even when nothing is wrong inside it.
• Weather. FEMA records show Fulton County in federal emergency or disaster declarations for severe storms, ice and hurricanes many times since 2000, including the 2014 winter storms, Hurricane Irma in 2017, Hurricane Helene in 2024 and a winter storm in 2026. The January 2014 storm stranded thousands of commuters on I-285 and GA-400. When staff can't reach the office, they need to work from wherever they are.

How we build it

• Full coverage. Servers, important workstations, line-of-business databases, Microsoft 365 email, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams.
• Several copies in several places. That's the familiar 3-2-1 pattern: at least three copies, on two different media, one of them outside your building. A local copy allows fast restores, and a cloud copy survives the loss of the building.
• Protection from attackers. Immutable backups that can't be changed or deleted during their retention period, even by an administrator account an attacker has stolen.
• Daily review. A person checks every backup job each business day, and failures are fixed and noted.
• Proof by restore. On a calendar we agree with you, we pull back sample files and spin up entire servers from backup, then log the minutes it took. Your recovery time becomes a number you've seen, not a vendor's claim.

Rules that require it

For medical practices, the HIPAA Security Rule requires a contingency plan, including data backup, disaster recovery and emergency mode operation. Law, accounting, insurance and financial firms face their own record-keeping duties from regulators, courts and client contracts. We build backup retention to match the periods you're required to keep, and document the setup so you can show it to an auditor, insurer or client.

Getting people back to work

Restoring data is half the work. The rest is people. A written recovery plan says who makes decisions, which systems come back first, how the main phone number gets forwarded, where staff work if the suite is closed and how clients or patients will be told. For firms already running on Microsoft 365, cloud phones and managed laptops, the answer to a closed building is often simple: everyone works from home until it reopens. We test that before you need it.

For systems that can't be down for more than a few hours, we can keep standby copies in the cloud that can be started quickly. For others, solid offsite backups and a tested restore plan are enough. We recommend what fits your risk, not the most expensive option.

Power in the closet

Brief outages and surges cause more damage than people think, especially in suites where the network closet shares a circuit with the break room. Each UPS protecting your firewall, switches or server gets sized to its load, reports its health to us and is set to power gear off gracefully if the outage drags on. Batteries get swapped on age, before they quit.

Questions about backup & disaster recovery