Backup / Recovery / Archive Fundamentals

Introduction

When you hear the word Backup, what usually comes to mind first is "saving data somewhere else."

But when an actual failure or breach occurs, what matters is not simply whether a Backup exists. Can you retrieve the data from the point in time you need? Can you bring the system back to a state you can actually use? And has the means of recovery itself been affected by the attack or failure? Only once you have thought through points like these does Backup actually connect to Recovery.

This book is not a manual explaining how to operate any specific product. By organizing ideas such as Backup, Restore, Recovery, Archive, and Retention, it aims to help you learn to think for yourself about what to protect, what to prepare for, and how far you need to be able to recover.

The main subject of this book is data and system-state copies used for Restore and Recovery. In actual Recovery, replacement equipment, alternate facilities, alternate sites, personnel, and communication means also matter, but covering the full scope of BCP or business continuity in general is not the purpose of this book.

Also, in real infrastructure, it is not always possible to apply the highest level of protection to every system. Cost, staffing, time, and operational load all impose constraints. For that reason, this book places importance not only on "can we implement every ideal measure," but also on the perspective of deciding what to prioritize, which risks to reduce, and which risks to leave in place.

Chapters 1 through 3 organize the basics of Backup and Recovery. After that, we move on to business requirements, RTO/RPO, Recovery Priority, Failure Domain, preparing for ransomware and privileged-access compromise, Cyber Recovery, and Test/Exercise, and finally we cover Archive, Retention, and their relationship to law, Privacy, and Contract. In the Capstone, we bring the ideas covered up to that point together in a single fictional case.

You do not need to memorize everything from the start. If, by the time you finish this book, you can no longer be satisfied with an explanation that only says "we have backups," and can instead confirm from what, to what state, and how you would recover — then this book has achieved its purpose.