Every business relies on data to operate efficiently. When systems go down or files are lost, the impact can be immediate and severe. Unplanned downtime can interrupt customer service, halt internal operations, and damage trust. A well-designed backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan helps businesses stay prepared for these moments and recover without losing critical information.
Today, modern BDR tools are faster, more flexible, and easier to manage. With the growing risks of ransomware, outages, and cloud vulnerabilities, a strong BDR strategy is essential for IT infrastructure.
Key takeaways
- BDR ensures businesses can quickly and reliably recover files and the full IT infrastructure. Backup stores copies of data, while disaster recovery restores systems and operations after disruptions.
- Backup strategies include full, incremental, and differential methods, each balancing speed, storage use, and recovery time differently.
- Backup storage options include on-premise, cloud, and hybrid backups, with hybrid offering the best mix of speed and resilience.
- BDR reduces downtime, limits data loss, and enables faster, more predictable recovery after an outage or cyberattack.
- A strong BDR plan helps meet regulatory requirements, lowers long-term IT costs, and strengthens ransomware defense.
What is backup and disaster recovery (BDR)?
Backup refers to the process of copying and storing data in a secure location that can be used for recovery if the production data is damaged or destroyed. Disaster recovery focuses on how that data is restored and how systems are returned online after an outage or security event. While these concepts are closely related, they serve different functions. Together, they ensure that businesses can quickly resume operations after disruptions.
An effective plan covers short-term recovery of files and folders and complete restoration of servers, applications, and network access, all within a timeframe that supports business needs.
Types of backup strategies
A solid backup strategy forms the foundation of a resilient disaster recovery plan. Understanding the available options helps organizations select the right mix of speed, storage efficiency, and restore capabilities. Backup strategies are defined by the backup method (including variables like frequency and history) and the storage location.
Backup methods
Full backup
A full backup captures an exact copy of all selected data every time it runs. This method is the most comprehensive but consumes the most time and storage space. Full backups are often performed on a scheduled basis, such as weekly or monthly, and used as a baseline for other types of backups.
Pros:
- Simplifies restoration
- Contains all files in a single snapshot
Cons:
- Requires significant time and storage
- May not be feasible for daily use in large environments
Incremental backup
This approach only backs up data that has changed since the last backup. For example, if a full backup was run on Sunday and an incremental backup ran on Monday, the latter would store only the changes made since Sunday. Tuesday’s backup would only include changes since Monday.
Pros:
- Highly efficient storage and speed
- Reduces backup time during daily operations
Cons:
- Slower recovery, as it requires combining the full backup and all subsequent incremental files
Differential backup
A differential backup stores all changes made since the last full backup. Each day, its size grows until the next full backup is completed.
Pros:
- Faster to restore than incremental backups
- Shorter recovery chain compared to incremental
Cons:
- Larger than incremental backups over time
- Requires more storage than incremental methods
Read our blog to learn more about the difference between incremental and differential backups.
Backup destinations
On-premise backup
These backups are stored locally on physical servers, NAS devices, or external hard drives. They offer quick access and high-speed recovery in local environments.
Use cases:
- Fast restores for large file systems
- Locations with strong physical security and limited internet access
Risks:
- Vulnerable to fire, flood, or local cyberattacks
- Often lacks redundancy if not paired with other methods
Cloud backup
Data is copied and stored in a cloud service provider’s infrastructure. This strategy enables off-site protection and access from virtually anywhere.
Use cases:
- Remote workforces
- Organizations needing geographic redundancy
- Scalable protection with less hardware investment
Risks:
- Dependent on internet access and bandwidth
- Requires encryption and careful access controls to ensure security
Hybrid backup
A hybrid backup approach combines both local and cloud storage. This method provides quick recovery from local storage while maintaining off-site redundancy in case of regional disasters or local failure.
Use cases:
- Businesses seeking a balance between speed and resilience
- Environments with high uptime requirements
Risks:
- More complex to configure and manage
- Must ensure both backup targets are synchronized
10 benefits of backup and disaster recovery
A well-designed BDR strategy safeguards critical systems, supports regulatory compliance, and helps reduce downtime-related costs. Below are the core benefits that make BDR a fundamental part of any resilient IT environment.
1. Minimized downtime and operational disruption
Unplanned downtime can halt operations entirely, whether from hardware failure, cyberattack, or natural disaster. A reliable BDR strategy allows organizations to restore systems quickly and return to everyday workflows without significant delays. This is especially important for customer-facing systems, internal collaboration tools, and line-of-business applications.
2. Faster recovery with predictable outcomes
Defining a recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) ensures stakeholders know how quickly systems can be restored (with RTO) and how much data the business can afford to lose when restoring from a previous backup (with RPO). This predictability reduces confusion, builds team trust, and provides IT departments with clear performance targets during a crisis. The more RTO and RPO are aligned with business needs, the smaller the impact on productivity and revenue.
3. Reduced data loss
Frequent backups limit the volume of lost data during system failure or file corruption. Modern backup systems can capture near real-time changes to files, databases, and virtual machines when configured properly. This level of protection is vital for environments where even a few hours of lost work could result in missed deadlines, lost transactions, or compliance violations.
4. Stronger ransomware defense
Ransomware attacks often target both live data and backup systems in an attempt to maximize damage. A modern BDR solution includes features such as immutable storage, encryption, and air-gapped backups to prevent tampering. With clean backups in place, organizations can restore data without paying a ransom and avoid prolonged business interruption.
5. Regulatory compliance support
Many regulatory frameworks require organizations to preserve sensitive data and demonstrate that it can be restored quickly. HIPAA, GDPR, FINRA, CMMC, and other standards often include specific backup and disaster recovery provisions. A documented and tested BDR plan helps demonstrate compliance during audits and reduces legal exposure in the event of a breach.
6. Lower long-term IT and recovery costs
While the upfront cost of deploying a BDR system may seem high, the long-term savings can be substantial. Avoiding data loss and reducing downtime both have a significant impact on limiting revenue loss due to downtime, while eliminating emergency response, PR, legal, and insurance expenses contribute to a lower total cost of ownership. In addition, businesses that leverage a cloud-based BDR solution can eliminate the hardware and maintenance expenses associated with traditional backup servers.
7. Improved customer trust and brand reputation
Data loss incidents and extended outages often become public knowledge, especially when customer data is affected. Having a tested recovery process builds confidence among clients, partners, and stakeholders. Organizations with strong BDR practices are more likely to retain customers and maintain brand credibility during high-pressure situations.
8. Support for business continuity planning
BDR is a foundational element of any business continuity strategy. It ensures that business operations can continue, even if systems fail or physical locations become inaccessible. While effective restoration processes and timelines are critical, many businesses will need some level of operations to maintain internal communication and client engagement during restoration. A business continuity plan (BCP) defines those processes to ensure that a business does not fail to meet requirements as the BDR plan is executed.
9. Scalability for future growth
Cloud-native BDR platforms are built to grow alongside your organization. As you onboard new clients, launch new applications, or expand geographically, your backup and recovery strategy can scale without major reconfiguration. This flexibility allows IT teams to focus on growth and innovation instead of constantly re-engineering backup processes.
10. Confidence in crisis scenarios
Perhaps the most important benefit is peace of mind. Teams that know they can restore operations quickly and test those processes can have confidence in their restoration solution. Instead of reacting under pressure, they can follow a rehearsed and repeatable process that reduces stress and improves results.
How to create a BDR plan
Building a backup and disaster recovery plan connects business needs, technical capabilities, and operational processes into a coordinated strategy. Whether starting from scratch or refining an existing approach, the steps below outline how to develop a BDR plan that aligns with your organization’s priorities and risk profile.
1. Conduct a risk and impact assessment
Start by identifying the most likely threats to your systems and the impact each could have on operations. Consider risks such as ransomware, server failure, accidental deletion, and natural disasters. Then, evaluate which systems, applications, and data are most critical to daily operations. This will help you prioritize what needs to be protected first and restored fastest.
Questions to ask:
- What data or systems are essential for our business to function?
- How long can we afford to be without access to key services?
- What are the financial and reputational consequences of different types of downtime?
2. Define recovery objectives
Use the information gathered in your assessment to establish recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for each critical system or dataset.
- RTO refers to how quickly systems must be restored after a disruption.
- RPO defines how much data loss is acceptable, measured by the time between backups.
These metrics directly shape the design of your backup schedule, storage infrastructure, and recovery processes.
3. Choose backup methods and storage locations
Select the types of backups (full, incremental, differential) and the storage strategy (on-prem, cloud, or hybrid) that best support your objectives. For most businesses, a hybrid model offers the flexibility to recover quickly from common incidents while ensuring off-site protection in case of a larger disaster.
Make sure the backup technology you choose:
- Integrates with your current IT infrastructure
- Supports automated scheduling and monitoring
- Provides encryption and versioning capabilities
- Offers rapid and flexible restore options
- Offers protection in the event of a cyberattack (immutable/encrypted/air gap)
Download our eBook to learn how hybrid cloud backups deliver critical business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) capabilities that ensure availability and data security in a digital world.
4. Document the disaster recovery process
Create a detailed, step-by-step plan that outlines how to respond to a disruptive event. Include instructions for initiating the recovery process, restoring systems and data, notifying internal stakeholders, and reporting to customers or regulators, if needed. This documentation should also name key personnel responsible for each step and include their contact information.
Recommended elements:
- Decision-making authority for declaring a disaster
- Escalation procedures
- Application recovery priorities
- Internal team contact information
- External vendor contact information
- Communication templates for internal and external audiences
Simplify the process of creating your plan with our Disaster Recovery Plan Template and Guide for MSPs.
5. Test the plan
No BDR plan is complete without testing. Simulate different failure scenarios to ensure your team can follow the documented process and your systems are restored as expected. Start with low-risk simulations and build up to more comprehensive failover tests. Track performance against your RTO and RPO targets and make adjustments as needed.
Testing also helps validate whether your tools and backup schedules are appropriate for real-world recovery demands.
6. Train staff across departments
Recovery is rarely a solo effort. Involve employees from IT, compliance, customer support, and other departments in both planning and testing. Provide clear instructions tailored to each team’s responsibilities during a recovery scenario. Even if a single group owns the BDR plan, coordination across the business is essential to execute it effectively under pressure.
7. Review and update the plan regularly
As your infrastructure, personnel, and business operations evolve, your BDR plan should, too. Schedule periodic reviews, especially after major IT changes or compliance updates. Regular updates ensure your plan remains aligned with current risks and technology capabilities.
Creating a BDR plan is not a one-time project. It is an ongoing investment in your organization’s resilience, designed to reduce uncertainty and keep teams focused when facing disruption. A well-built plan turns what could be a crisis into a manageable, recoverable event.
Backup and disaster recovery best practices
Once a BDR plan is in place, consistent execution and refinement are what make it effective in real-world situations. These best practices help teams avoid common pitfalls, maintain system integrity, and ensure recoverability over time.
Prioritize consistency over complexity
Even the most advanced technology will fail to deliver results if not used consistently. Stick to a backup schedule that matches your recovery objectives and avoid making frequent, undocumented changes. Keep processes simple enough to be executed under pressure and across different teams.
Monitor backups proactively
A backup that fails silently is just as dangerous as having no backup at all. Set up alerting systems that notify IT staff of missed jobs, failed transfers, or irregular storage growth. Visibility into the success or failure of each backup cycle ensures that issues are caught early before they become recovery problems.
Separate backup management from production systems
Ensure that backup systems, credentials, and administrative controls are isolated from production environments. If a threat actor gains access to live systems, this separation can prevent them from corrupting or deleting your recovery data. Use role-based access control (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to limit who can alter backup configurations.
Rotate and retain data strategically
Not all data needs to be retained forever. Align your data retention policies with legal, regulatory, and operational requirements. Set appropriate retention periods and use versioning to protect against corruption or malicious changes that may go undetected for days or weeks.
Regularly audit backup content
Schedule periodic audits to confirm that your backups contain all the systems, files, and application data required to meet business and compliance needs. Systems evolve, applications are retired or added, and storage configurations change over time. Auditing ensures no critical data is left unprotected due to configuration drift.
Align BDR with broader security policies
BDR should not be treated as a standalone function. Integrate it with your broader cybersecurity, compliance, and business continuity efforts. Use your security awareness program to educate staff on the importance of backup hygiene and how to respond if a recovery process needs to be initiated.
Track metrics that matter
Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for backup and recovery, including:
- Backup success rate
- Time to restore (actual vs target RTO)
- Number of failed backups or missed schedules
- Storage capacity and cost trends
Using metrics turns your BDR program from a static safety measure into a performance-driven process that can be optimized over time.
Get started
Having a reliable backup and disaster recovery plan is one of the most essential parts of running a secure and stable business. It ensures that data is not lost and that operations can resume quickly, even after major incidents. Cloud tools, automation, and strong processes make it easier than ever to protect your systems without slowing down daily work.
If your BDR plan has not been reviewed or tested recently, now is the time to act. Discover how BCDR solutions from ConnectWise can build on your BDR plan, providing more comprehensive protection and recovery capabilities to keep your business running smoothly.
