What we usually find
When we review a new office, the backup is frequently the shakiest piece. It was set up long ago, and its error alerts land in a former employee's inbox. The server is covered, yet Microsoft 365, laptops and newer cloud apps are not. In some offices the sole copy lives on an external drive attached to the very PC it guards, so one ransomware run would wipe out both.
What puts offices at risk
- Ransomware: the top cause of full restores at small firms. Attackers go looking for backup systems first and wipe them before encrypting anything else.
- Account takeover: a hijacked Microsoft 365 account can delete or overwrite files across SharePoint and OneDrive, and the sync spreads the damage.
- Hardware failure: drives, storage arrays and aging servers die, and they pick deadline weeks to do it.
- Human error: someone deletes the wrong folder, saves over a workbook or lets a sync go wrong.
- Building problems: in a multi-tenant office park you don't control the roof, the sprinklers or the power room. A leak from the suite above, a fire next door or a break-in can take out your equipment and any backup sitting beside it.
- Weather and power: metro Atlanta's summer thunderstorms bring lightning, surges and short outages, and the occasional winter ice storm brings longer ones. Each one is a chance for a server or database to shut down badly.
Our setup
- Nothing important left out: servers, critical PCs, Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams and the databases behind your business apps.
- Several copies: one on site so small restores are quick, and another in the cloud if the suite itself is gone. That follows the familiar 3-2-1 rule.
- Locked against attackers: immutable backups that can't be changed or deleted, even by someone holding an admin password.
- Checked every business day: a person reviews the results. Failed jobs get fixed, not just logged.
- Scheduled restore drills: we recover files and complete systems on purpose and time the process, so you know your real recovery window.
People need a plan as well
Restored files mean little if nobody can use them. Staff have to be productive again. The written plan names a decision maker, a fallback place to work when the suite is off limits, how the phones get forwarded, the order systems return in and the message clients receive. For a Peachtree Corners office where most people already work hybrid, the answer is often reassuring: with laptops, Microsoft 365 and cloud phones, work continues from home while the building is sorted out. We make sure that's actually true by testing it.
Some firms can only tolerate a few hours of downtime. For them, a cloud replica of each critical server sits ready to boot if local hardware is lost. Many others do fine with a dependable offsite copy and a restore process they've practiced. We'll recommend what matches your risk and budget, and explain the tradeoffs plainly.
Moves are a risk window
Office moves are common around Technology Parkway and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, and they're a classic time to lose data. Servers get unplugged, drives get boxed and a backup job quietly stops. Before any move, we take and verify a fresh full backup, and we confirm the jobs are running again at the new location before the old one is handed back.
Power protection
A two-second flicker can corrupt a database that was mid-write. Every server, firewall and core switch we manage sits on a battery unit we monitor. If an outage drags on, the battery triggers an orderly shutdown, and we swap aging batteries on a schedule. Dull work, but it saves a lot of rebuilding.
Questions about backup & disaster recovery
Isn't Microsoft 365 already backed up?
Microsoft protects its own service and keeps deleted items for a limited time. It won't cover ransomware that encrypts synced files, deletions found months later or an ex-employee's mailbox. A separate backup fills those gaps.
How will we know the backups work?
File restores are drilled often, and a complete system recovery is rehearsed every year at minimum. Afterward you receive a one-page note listing what came back and the time it took.
