When it’s time to move from backups to managed disaster recovery

Backups are a safety net against file deletion, corruption, or localized data loss. But when an outage or ransomware attack takes down a server, restoring from a backup means rebuilding your environment from scratch while your business waits.

Managed disaster recovery (DR) keeps a standby environment ready, so you’re back online in minutes instead of facing hours of downtime during a rebuild. 

Signs your backups have stopped being enough

There are four key signs that backups are no longer enough to support your business:

1. Rebuilding your servers takes longer than your business can stay offline. A restore requires provisioning new servers, installing software, and rerouting traffic, which can take hours or days.
2. You need to show proof that your recovery works. Auditors, cyber insurers, and customers require evidence of tested recovery. Frameworks such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, and SOC 2 expect recovery plans that are documented and tested.
3. A ransomware attack leaves you with clean files but no clean servers to run them on. You can’t restore your backup onto infected servers, and building clean ones takes time. Managed DR gives you a separate environment to run from while the original is investigated and cleaned.
4. Only one person knows how to bring your systems back online. If recovery depends on one engineer remembering the order systems come back, it also depends on that engineer being reachable.

What changes when you move to Nexcess Managed Disaster Recovery

Moving to Nexcess Managed Disaster Recovery solves for those 4 signs, changing what happens the day your systems go down. It’s set up so that when something breaks, you can easily switch over instead of rebuilding.

First, Nexcess keeps an up-to-date copy of your systems. We test switching over to it on a set schedule, and every test is saved with a timestamp, so you have a record to show an auditor, insurer, or customer.

We also check the connection to that copy ahead of time, so problems show up in testing, not during an outage. During onboarding, we’ll write your recovery runbook with you. It lays out your systems, what relies on what, and the order they come back in. It’s another document your team can follow, and that auditors can review.

During a disaster, you’ll have engineers on the line. Depending on your plan, Nexcess engineers will walk your team through switching over or do it for you, including switching you back to your main system when everything is fixed.

How to decide if you need managed DR

Evaluating your disaster recovery strategy comes down to three operational triggers:

• Acceptable downtime during server rebuilds
• Compliance or insurance requirements
• Staff to handle a manual recovery. 

When your business reaches a point where backups fail to solve these problems, managed disaster recovery fills the gap. 

A Nexcess engineer can review your current setup and give you an assessment on whether moving to managed DR makes the most sense for your business.