Disaster Recovery & Failover

When “we have backups” isn’t enough

Most businesses assume that because data is backed up, they are safe. Then a server dies, ransomware locks the files, or a cloud provider has an outage — and the real questions arrive. How long until staff can work again? How much work is lost? Who does what, in what order?

Backup is a copy of your data. Disaster recovery is the plan and the infrastructure that turn that copy back into a working business — servers, line-of-business apps, email, logins and shared files — inside a time you decided in advance. Without a documented plan, a “recoverable” backup can still mean days of downtime while someone works out where to even start.

This page is about continuity of operations: getting people productive again quickly, with a known amount of data loss and a known recovery time.

What we set up

• A documented DR plan — written steps, roles, contacts and recovery order, so anyone can follow it under pressure
• Agreed RTO and RPO — target recovery time and acceptable data loss, set per system rather than one-size-fits-all
• Failover options — from cloud standby servers you can switch to, through to replicated virtual machines that take over automatically
• Immutable, offline-capable copies — recovery data that ransomware cannot reach or encrypt
• Scheduled recovery testing — real restores and failovers, timed against your targets, with a short report
• Ransomware-recovery readiness — clean-restore points and a runbook so an attack means hours, not weeks

Who it’s for

Small and mid-sized businesses across Streatham, South London, Croydon and Surrey that cannot afford long downtime — accountants at year-end, law and property firms with deadlines, healthcare and care providers, e-commerce sellers, and manufacturers running order systems. It also suits home-workers and hybrid teams whose files and apps live in the cloud but who have never checked they could actually recover them. If an hour offline costs you money or trust, you need more than backup.

How it works

1. Business-impact review — we map your critical systems and agree an RTO and RPO for each
2. DR design — we choose the right failover approach per system: cloud standby, replication or fast restore
3. Build and protect — we put copies and standby infrastructure in place, including immutable, offline-capable data
4. Write the plan — a clear runbook with steps, roles and recovery order, kept where you can reach it in a crisis
5. Test and time — we run a failover or restore, measure it against your targets, and fix any gaps
6. Review — we retest on a schedule and after big changes, so the plan stays true

Problems we commonly fix

• “We have backups but no idea how long recovery would actually take”
• Ransomware that also encrypted the backups because they were online and reachable
• A dead server with no standby, leaving staff idle for days
• Recovery plans that live in one person’s head — and that person is on holiday
• Restore points too far apart, so a failure loses a full day of work
• Plans written years ago that have never once been tested

Disaster recovery works best alongside solid backup and continuity and strong cyber security. If the worst has already happened, our data recovery service can help retrieve what’s on failed drives. Not sure where you stand? Get in touch and we’ll review your recovery readiness.