Catalog
method#Reliability#Security#DevOps

Backup

Planned procedure for protecting data and system state, governing restoration, retention and validation.

Backup describes procedures for scheduled protection of data and system state, including retention, restoration and validation.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Technical
  • Architectural
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Storage systems (NAS, object storage, SAN)Database-specific backup tools and snapshotsMonitoring and ticketing systems for incident handling

Principles & goals

Regularity: Backups must be scheduled and automated.Validation: Recoverability must be verified by regular tests.Security: Data must be encrypted at rest and in transit.
Run
Enterprise, Domain, Team

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Risk of corrupted backups remaining undetected without integrity checks.
  • Unencrypted backups endanger privacy and compliance.
  • Lack of offsite copies increases risk in site-level failures.
  • Perform automated, verified restore tests regularly at minimum.
  • Use encryption and access controls for backup data.
  • Combine local fast restores with off-site redundancy.

I/O & resources

  • List of data sets and systems to be backed up
  • Backup policy with retention and frequency
  • Storage targets, encryption and access policies
  • Backup archives (full/incremental), verification logs
  • Recovery documentation and test reports
  • Retention and deletion evidence for compliance

Description

Backup describes procedures for scheduled protection of data and system state, including retention, restoration and validation. The method covers full, incremental and differential strategies, retention policies and regular restore tests to ensure recoverability. Its goal is to maximise data availability and minimise downtime across on-premises and cloud environments.

✔

  • Reduces data loss and shortens recovery times.
  • Enables compliance via audit-proof retention.
  • Supports restoration after outages or failures.

✖

  • Requires additional storage and operational costs.
  • Insufficient testing can create a false sense of security.
  • Complexity in heterogeneous system landscapes.

  • Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

    Target time to restore a service after failure.

  • Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

    Maximum tolerable data loss measured in time.

  • Backup success rate

    Proportion of successful backup runs versus scheduled runs.

Small business nightly backups

Daily full backups overnight with weekly offsite copies.

Enterprise with tiered retention

Combination of incremental backups, snapshots and long-term archival for compliance.

Cloud-native app using storage snapshots

Use of block and object storage snapshots for fast recovery.

1

Analyze data criticality and define RTO/RPO

2

Select appropriate backup strategy and tools

3

Set up automation, monitoring and schedule restore tests

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Legacy backup formats without documentation hinder recovery.
  • Non-standard backup scripts complicate automation.
  • Unclear retention rules lead to unnecessary storage buildup.
Storage cost: long-term retention increases costs.Network bandwidth: large transfers strain infrastructure.Restore duration: recovery speed impacts RTO.
  • Only local backups without an off-site copy in case of site failure.
  • Using backup scripts without error handling and alerts.
  • Automated backups but no scheduled restore tests.
  • Relying on success messages without integrity checks.
  • Unclear responsibilities for restore operations.
  • Missing consideration of dependencies between systems.
Knowledge of storage architectures and backup toolsExperience with restore tests and validation methodsUnderstanding of RTO/RPO and compliance requirements
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and business requirementsRecovery Point Objective (RPO) and data criticalityIntegrity and encryption of backups
  • • Legal retention periods and data protection requirements.
  • • Limited local storage capacity during backup windows.
  • • Performance impact on production during backups.