The question isn’t whether you have backups. It’s how fast you’re working again.
Protected copies of the data your business runs on, stored so one failure can’t take them all out — and a recovery path that has actually been tested.
Data is rarely lost dramatically.
It’s usually something ordinary: a drive fails, a folder gets deleted, a laptop is stolen, or a system stops and nobody has a copy from before it broke.
Hardware failure
The drive holding the only copy stops, usually with no warning worth acting on.
Deletion & mistakes
Someone removes the wrong folder, and it’s noticed three weeks later.
Attack or ransom
Files are encrypted or destroyed — including backups stored where the attack could reach them.
Site loss
Fire, water or theft takes the building, and every copy was inside it.
A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan. The measure that matters is how long it takes to get the business working again — and whether anyone has ever checked.
What HAL sets up
A backup nobody has restored from is a theory. The work below is mostly about turning it into a fact.
Working out what needs protecting — files, email, records and the systems the business depends on — and how far back you need to be able to go.
A copy kept close for fast recovery, so a deleted folder or failed drive is an inconvenience rather than an outage.
A separate copy held away from the office, so the building and the data can’t be lost in the same event.
Backups configured so an incident on the network cannot simply delete or encrypt them along with everything else.
Checking that jobs are running and the data is usable, rather than trusting a green light nobody looks at.
Confirming the restore process works before you need it, so the first attempt isn’t during an emergency.
What gets restored first, who does it and roughly how long it takes — so the answer exists before the question is urgent.
From “we think it’s backing up” to a tested plan.
Most businesses already have something in place. The work is usually confirming whether it covers what matters and whether it would survive a real incident.
- 01
Find out what’s protected
Check what is being backed up today, what isn’t, and whether the jobs are actually completing.
- 02
Agree what recovery means
How much data you could stand to lose and how long you could operate without each system.
- 03
Put the copies in place
Local and offsite copies configured and protected, covering the systems that were being missed.
- 04
Test and keep checking
Restore something, confirm it works, then monitor it as part of ongoing support.
Would your backup hold up on a bad day?
Most businesses find out the answer at the worst possible moment. It’s a cheaper question to ask now.