🛡️Backup and Recovery

NEW

Also known as: Data Backup

Processes that create data copies and restore systems to minimize data loss and downtime.

DESCRIPTION

Backup and recovery protects organizations by copying data and enabling restoration after loss, corruption, or disasters. Modern strategies combine full, incremental, and differential backups with snapshots and replication. Objectives are typically defined by recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO). Cloud services provide managed, policy-driven backups across regions for resilience. Testing recovery procedures is as important as creating backups. Encryption, immutability, and air-gapping mitigate ransomware and insider threats. Tiered storage balances cost and speed for backups and archives. Orchestration and automation reduce human error and speed recovery. Integrations with applications and databases ensure transactionally consistent backups.

ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS

Wikipedia

In information technology, a backup, or data backup, is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event.

Emphasizes the fundamental purpose of backups as copies for data restoration after loss.

Source

IBM

Backup and recovery refers to the process of creating and storing copies of data that can be used to protect organizations against data loss.

Frames backup and recovery as organizational protection against data loss.

Source

RELATED TERMS

Data Replication Materialized View Point-in-Time Recovery Business Continuity Recovery Point Objective Recovery Time Objective Failover Archive

COMPETING TERMS

High Availability Disaster Recovery

RELATIONS

• Narrower: Backup Data Backup and Recovery

KNOWLEDGE AREAS

Data Storage & Operations Data Management Data Security Cloud Infrastructure

TARGET AUDIENCE

Data Engineer DevOps Engineer Cloud Architect Data Architect Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer

EXTERNAL SOURCES

• Wikipedia - Backup
• AWS - Managed, policy-based backup service overview.
• Microsoft - Azure Backup service overview.
• Google Cloud - Backup and DR service for GCP workloads.
• NIST - Contingency planning guidance including backups.

TOP QUESTIONS

What is a practical definition of Backup and Recovery?

It is the practice of copying data and configurations and restoring them to a working state after loss, corruption, or disaster. The clear goal is minimizing data loss and downtime.

Category: Definition

Why is Backup and Recovery still relevant in cloud-native environments?

Clouds improve availability but do not eliminate human error, ransomware, or misconfigurations. Backup and recovery remains essential to meet RPO/RTO and compliance obligations.

Category: Relevancy

What are RPO and RTO in Backup and Recovery?

RPO is the maximum tolerable period of data loss; RTO is the targeted duration to restore service. They jointly shape backup frequency and recovery design choices.

Category: Concepts

What is a common mistake in Backup and Recovery planning?

Organizations often fail to test restores. Untested backups provide false confidence and regularly cause surprises when recovery speed or completeness is inadequate.

Category: Mistakes

How does Backup and Recovery mitigate ransomware risk?

Immutable, offline, or air-gapped backups prevent encryption or deletion by attackers. Fast, clean restores break extortion pressure and reduce business impact.

Category: Risk

What is the difference between Backup and Recovery and Disaster Recovery?

Backup focuses on data copies. Disaster recovery addresses broader service continuity, including failover infrastructure, applications, and dependencies across regions.

Category: Comparison

How should databases handle Backup and Recovery?

Use application-consistent backups, leverage native snapshot/backup features, and capture transaction logs for point-in-time recovery. Regular restore tests validate integrity.

Category: Best practices

What is currently a hot topic in Backup and Recovery?

Backup immutability, cyber recovery vaults, and orchestrated, near-instant restores using snapshots and replication are key trends to counter modern threats.

Category: Topic

Where should teams start with Backup and Recovery design?

Define critical workloads, set RPO/RTO targets with stakeholders, choose appropriate technologies, implement policies and automation, and schedule routine recovery drills.

Category: Getting started