Why Do You Need a Backup Disaster Recovery Plan?
When it comes to the data that drives your business, you must ensure that important information, applications, and systems are always accessible. A comprehensive backup and recovery plan can help maintain business continuity during a disaster or unexpected outage.
A backup and disaster recovery plan through CAL IT Group keeps your data secure and recoverable through an unexpected outage or catastrophic failure. Our solutions are designed with scalability in mind and built around recovery targets we agree with you, so your business can get back up and running quickly. A plan only works if people know their part — here’s how to train your staff to carry it out.
Having a reliable recovery procedure helps manage costs associated with downtime or data loss disasters and mitigate risks associated with not having a proper action plan set up beforehand.
We manage backup strategies for businesses of all sizes. The benefits of our disaster recovery plans include:
Reduced risk of data loss
With a backup and disaster recovery plan in place, you have peace of mind that your critical data is safe from natural disasters, hardware failures, and other unexpected events.
Increased efficiency
Our team can automate your backups so that they’re completed without manual intervention, saving you time and money.
Improved business continuity
Your backups are securely stored off-site or in the cloud. You won’t have to worry about losing important information if anything happens to your physical environment.
Greater control over security
We work with you to develop a strong security strategy that meets your specific needs. From encryption to access controls, we can help protect your data while ensuring it’s easily accessible when needed.
How We Protect Your Data
Protection is layered, from fast local restores to near real-time cloud replication:
- 01 · Local
On-site appliance for fast restores
Your first line of defense, enabling rapid restoration of files and virtual machines with minimal downtime.
Backup appliance - 02 · Off-site
Off-site replication to Microsoft Azure
Backups are replicated off-site to Microsoft Azure, so your data is recoverable even after a catastrophic site failure.¹
Microsoft Azure - 03 · Cloud DR
Microsoft Azure Site Recovery
For strict recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPO/RTO), near real-time replication brings critical applications and systems back online with minimal data loss. Microsoft licensing and Azure usage are billed separately.
Azure Site Recovery - 04 · SaaS
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backup
Automated backups of email, files, calendars, contacts and chat, powered by Dropsuite.
Dropsuite
¹ Requires the appropriate Microsoft licensing (and Azure usage for consumed storage and Site Recovery), billed separately.
Backup management, monitoring and recovery support are included in Managed Care; server backup storage is billed based on the amount of data protected. Weighing cloud copies against local ones? Read the benefits and best practices of backing up to the cloud.
Built Around Your RTO and RPO
Every business can tolerate a different amount of downtime and data loss — and every system inside a business is different too. So before we design anything, we sit down with your leadership and agree on two numbers for each system that matters:
RTO — Recovery Time Objective
How long can you be down? The longest a system can be unavailable after a failure before it seriously hurts the business. An RTO of 4 hours means the system must be back up within 4 hours of an outage.
RPO — Recovery Point Objective
How much data can you afford to lose? Measured in time: the gap between the last good copy and the moment of failure. An RPO of 15 minutes means you could lose, at most, the last 15 minutes of work.
Shorter targets cost more to deliver, so we walk through the trade-offs in plain language and help you set realistic targets system by system:
| Example system | Typical RTO | Typical RPO | How we meet it |
|---|---|---|---|
| ERP, accounting or line-of-business server | Minutes to a few hours | 15 minutes to 1 hour | Frequent image backups to an on-site appliance, offsite replication and cloud failover with Azure Site Recovery |
| File shares and shared drives | Same business day | A few hours | Scheduled backups with fast local restores and an offsite copy |
| Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace mail and files | Hours | Daily or better | Cloud-to-cloud backup, separate from the platform itself |
| Archive and reference data | Days | Daily to weekly | Lower-cost backup and long-term retention |
Examples only — your targets come from your business, not a template.
Once the targets are agreed, we craft a written business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan to match them: which systems are backed up and how often, where the copies live, the order systems come back in, who does what during an incident and how your team keeps working in the meantime. (Want to see what one looks like? Start with our sample business continuity plan template.) Then we prove it — we test restores on a schedule, confirm the plan still meets your RTO and RPO, and review it with you as your business changes.
A Local Team That Answers When It Matters
CAL IT Group knows there’s no time to waste pursuing your core objectives. 96%LIVE of calls during business hours are answered within 60 seconds by our local Huntington Beach team. When you contact us for IT support, we’re there for you with leading-edge processes and solutions.
Schedule My Network Health Assessment
What Happens When You Don’t Have a Disaster Recovery Procedure?
Without a backup and disaster recovery plan, your business risks data loss due to hardware failure, malicious software, cyberattacks, and other disasters. You may lose access to important files or systems, which can result in lost profits, decreased productivity, and even potential legal liability if sensitive information is compromised.
At CAL IT Group, we understand how critical it is for businesses without pre-existing plans to take the right precautions before disaster strikes—that’s why we specialize in developing customized solutions tailored to meet your needs and stay within your budget. We’re a customer-focused managed IT provider. When you receive our support, we treat you with the responsiveness and attention to detail you deserve. We want to be a partner to your organization, not only a provider.
What a Real Disaster Recovery Plan Includes
CAL IT Group provides comprehensive backup and disaster recovery services that help protect organizations from data loss, system failure, and other unforeseen events. We offer solutions tailored to your core objectives that provide maximum protection and reduce downtime.
Our team of certified engineers is experienced in developing customized solutions that meet stringent industry standards for high-availability systems.
We employ leading-edge technologies like cloud computing and virtualization to keep your data available and secure. Our certified engineers deliver on-site support to help implement your backup and recovery plan.
You can count on CAL IT Group to be there when you need us.
Shield Your Business
Don’t let disaster strike your business unprepared. Discover how CAL IT Group’s cybersecurity solutions can safeguard your data and systems from unforeseen events.
Learn more about Cybersecurity
We reinforce your business continuity plan by following these steps:
- Step 1
Defining objectives
We work with your team to define clear goals for your recovery plan and ensure it meets your needs.
Recovery goals - Step 2
Identifying risks
Identifying potential threats to your system with detection tools and software should be the first step in creating a plan.
Risk review - Step 3
Developing strategies and procedures
We structure strategies and procedures designed for various scenarios and levels of risk.
Written procedures - Step 4
Establishing backup plans
We test backups regularly to ensure they can be accessed and restored quickly in an emergency.
Restore tests - Step 5
Monitoring and testing
We support your recovery plan with regular monitoring and testing to maintain its currency.
Ongoing monitoring - Step 6
Running the recovery
If disaster strikes, our engineers run the plan with you, restoring systems in priority order from tested backups.
Priority restores
What Does a Data Recovery Plan With CAL IT Group Include?
A complete backup and disaster recovery plan should include advanced strategies that ensure the health and integrity of your critical assets. CAL IT Group safeguards your business operations with a comprehensive program designed to maximize your mobility and promote recoverability throughout your business processes.
- Snapshot
System Images
System images create a snapshot of your system at any given time, allowing for quick recovery following any disruption.
Full-system snapshot - Applications
Application-Level Backups
Application-level backups protect applications such as databases and email systems from potential disasters.
Databases · email - Protect
Security Protocols
Security protocols help keep your data safe by providing encryption and other protective measures to ensure it’s not vulnerable to attack.
Encryption - Off-site
Off-site and cloud copies
Copies are kept off-site and in the cloud, so a fire, flood or ransomware attack at the office can’t take your only backup.
On-site · Azure
Restore tests, not just backups
A backup job that reports “success” only proves files were copied. What matters is whether you can get a working system back, how long it takes and how much work is lost. So we test restores on a schedule — files, full servers and Microsoft 365 data — and compare the result with the recovery targets we agreed with you. When a test misses, we fix the plan before a real outage finds the gap.
Know what an hour offline costs
Put a number on downtime with the free downtime cost calculator, then set recovery targets that fit it.
Plan for ransomware
Recovering from ransomware is different from recovering from a failed server. See ransomware and breach response.
Back up the cloud too
Email, OneDrive, SharePoint and Google Drive are backed up as part of Microsoft 365 management.
Restores you can trust
We test restores on a schedule, so you know your backups work long before you ever need them.