Backups and disaster recovery sound alike, so teams buy one and assume they bought both. That mistake hurts on the worst day: ransomware, a cloud outage, or a flooded office. This guide clears the confusion and helps you buy the right level of protection.
Backup Saves Data, Disaster Recovery Restores Operations
A backup is a copy of data you can restore later.
Disaster recovery is the plan and setup that restores the systems that run your work.
Backup answers, “Can we get files back?” Disaster recovery answers, “Can we operate again?”
Why People Mix Them Up (And Why It Hurts)
Most vendors market “backup and disaster recovery services” as one bundle. Many tools also include both features. That blurs the line.
The business impact is simple. Backup without recovery planning often means long downtime. Recovery planning without strong backups risks major data loss.
Three Definitions You Can Use With Your MSP
Backup: A Point-In-Time Copy
Backups capture data at a moment and store it safely. They protect you from deletions, corruption, and device failures.
Good backups are automated, monitored, and protected from tampering.
Disaster Recovery: A Recovery Method And Runbook
Disaster recovery is the runbook plus the recovery environment. It covers people, steps, access, and where systems will run after an incident.
A simple reference is the NIST disaster recovery plan definition.
Business Continuity Planning: How Work Continues
Business continuity planning is wider than IT. It includes vendors, people, locations, and manual workarounds. It starts with a business impact analysis.
Disaster recovery is usually one piece of continuity.
The Two Numbers That Decide Your Design: RPO And RTO
RPO: How Much Data Can You Lose
Recovery Point Objective is your maximum acceptable data loss, measured in time.
If your RPO is one hour, you need backups or replication at least hourly.
Example: If orders change all day, losing four hours creates rework and disputes. A one-hour RPO limits loss to a small window.
RTO: How Long Can You Be Down
Recovery Time Objective is your maximum acceptable downtime, measured in time.
If your RTO is four hours, your core systems must be usable in four hours.
Example: If your phones and CRM are down, sales stops. A two-hour RTO may work. For dispatch, you may need minutes during business hours.
A useful shortcut: backups protect RPO. Disaster recovery protects RTO.
What Backups Do Well (And Where They Stop)
Backups are great for everyday incidents:
- Accidental deletions
- Bad updates and corrupted files
- Single server failures
- Lost laptops and broken drives
But restores can be slow. Large data sets take time to pull back. You may also need to rebuild servers first.
Backups also do not restore your network, identity, apps, or permissions by themselves. Those pieces matter in real outages.
What Disaster Recovery Adds On Top Of Backup
Disaster recovery turns “we have copies” into “we can run again.”
Recovery Runbooks And Roles
A runbook lists the steps, owners, logins, and decision points. It also includes who talks to staff and customers.
Alternate Infrastructure And Failover
DR often includes an alternate place to run workloads. That might be a warm standby, a cloud recovery site, or DRaaS.
The tighter your RTO, the more automation you need for failover.
Testing, Drills, And Proof
A plan you never test is a hope. DR should include regular recovery tests and written results.
Testing also finds blockers, like missing licenses or expired admin credentials.
Ransomware Recovery: Why “We Have Backups” Is Not Enough
Ransomware recovery is harder than “restore and move on.” Attackers try to reach backups, steal data, and break admin accounts.
Recent reports still show many victims pay ransoms, and recovery results vary. Other research shows backup recovery rates can fall when attackers reach backup systems.
A practical ransomware recovery stack includes:
- Immutable or write-once backups
- An offline or air-gapped copy
- Clean restore steps, so malware does not return
- Identity recovery, including MFA and admin accounts
- A safe restore area for testing
A Simple Decision Framework: Tier Your Systems
You do not need gold-level DR for everything. Tier your systems by impact.
- List systems and owners
- Set target RPO and RTO for each
- Group them into tiers
- Match each tier to a recovery method
- Test and improve quarterly
A common pattern:
- Tier 1: Revenue, safety, and core ops
- Tier 2: Internal productivity tools
- Tier 3: Low-impact archives
This keeps spending tied to business impact.
What To Ask For From Your MSP
Vague promises do not restore systems. Ask for specifics.
Backup Checklist
- Scope: what is protected and what is not
- Backup frequency tied to your RPO
- Strong retention rules
- Monitoring and alerting on failures
- Regular restore tests on real data
- Protection against deletion and encryption
Disaster Recovery Checklist
- Documented runbooks for Tier 1 and Tier 2
- A defined recovery site with access ready
- Failover and failback steps
- A test schedule with written results
- RTO and RPO targets written into an SLA
- A communication plan for incidents
If a provider cannot show the last test report, treat that as a risk.
Cost And Risk: How To Right-Size Your Plan
Disaster recovery is a spectrum. Restore-from-backup is cheapest, but slow. Warm standby costs more and cuts downtime. Hot failover costs the most.
Start with solid backups for everything. Add DR where downtime is expensive.
Also remember incident costs can be huge. The latest IBM Cost of a Data Breach report keeps the pressure on resilience.
Recovery Isn’t Real Until You’ve Tested It
Backup brings your files back. Disaster recovery brings your business back. Set clear RPO and RTO targets, then tier your systems so the most important tools recover first. Most importantly, test restores and DR drills on a schedule, not “when something happens.” If your provider sells a bundle, ask to see the runbook, the recovery targets, and the most recent test report. Want help getting this right? NetCom Online can review your backup and DR setup and give you a clear, practical recovery plan—reach out today.
FAQs
Do I need disaster recovery if I use saas apps?
What is the difference between RPO and RTO?
How often should I test?
Test restores monthly for key data. Run a DR exercise twice a year. Test again after major changes.
Is paying a ransom a recovery plan?
No. Payment does not guarantee full recovery. Plan for clean restores, strong backups, and a tested DR path.
