Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Overview
What happens if your server fails tomorrow? If ransomware encrypts your files? If your office floods? If your primary internet connection goes down for three days?
Do you have good answers to these questions? Perhaps you assume that your backups work (without testing them). Or maybe you hope incidents will not happen to you. Or you will figure it out when it happens.
Hoping for the best is not a plan.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) means having plans, tested procedures, and reliable backups that let you restore critical systems and data quickly when something goes wrong. It is the difference between "we will be back up in a few hours" and "we have lost everything."
We help you build resilience through proper backup and disaster recovery solutions, documented continuity plans, and regular testing to ensure everything actually works when you need it.
This page covers BCDR strategy and planning, backup and recovery management, Disaster Recovery as a Service, Business Impact Analysis, incident and ransomware recovery, BCDR testing, and continuity documentation.
BCDR Strategy & Planning
You cannot just buy backup software and call it disaster recovery. You need a proper strategy that covers what to protect, how to protect it, and how to recover when things go wrong.
Business Continuity Planning
Business continuity is about keeping your business running during disruptions. We help you:
- ●Identify critical business functions and the IT systems that support them
- ●Define maximum acceptable downtime for each system
- ●Plan alternative working arrangements during disruptions
- ●Document communication plans for staff, clients, and suppliers
- ●Define roles and responsibilities during incidents
Disaster Recovery Planning
Disaster recovery is specifically about restoring IT systems and data after major failures or incidents. We help you:
- ●Define Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) - how quickly each system needs to be restored
- ●Define Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) - how much data loss is acceptable
- ●Document step-by-step recovery procedures for each critical system
- ●Identify dependencies between systems
- ●Plan for different scenarios (hardware failure, ransomware, site loss, etc.)
These plans are documented and reviewed regularly, tested (not just filed and forgotten), and updated when your IT environment changes.
Backup & Recovery Management
Backups are the foundation of disaster recovery. But backups only matter if they work when you need them.
We provide comprehensive backup management covering endpoints, servers, Microsoft 365, and cloud workloads. All with daily monitoring, verification, and proactive issue resolution.
Endpoint Backups
For critical endpoints and systems running specialised software, we recommend and deploy secure cloud backup solutions. What this provides:
- ●Full disaster recovery image of the device
- ●Rapid restoration in the event of hardware failure, data loss, or cyber incident
- ●Independent protection separate from device itself
- ●Daily backup monitoring and verification
Server Backups
Server backups are performed at image level, enabling full system restoration if required. What this covers:
- ●Operating system, applications, and data
- ●Full system restoration capability
- ●Daily monitoring, verification, and proactive issue resolution
- ●Automated backup processes with alerting on failures
All server backup services are fully managed by the Dark Knight helpdesk team.
Microsoft 365 Backups
Backups are configured for selected users to protect business-critical cloud data. What this covers:
- ●OneDrive files, email, and selected Teams data for Microsoft 365 users
- ●Google Drive documents and Gmail for Google Workspace users
- ●Independent protection beyond native platform retention
- ●Protection against accidental deletion, malicious deletion, or account compromise
Cloud Workload Backups
For businesses running cloud infrastructure, we provide backup solutions appropriate to the platform. What we manage:
- ●Backup configuration and scheduling
- ●Daily monitoring and verification
- ●Restoration testing to ensure backups actually work
- ●Clear documentation of what is backed up and retention periods
Backup retention periods and restore testing expectations are defined in your service agreement. Storage costs are billed separately based on data volumes.
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
Backups let you restore data, while Disaster Recovery as a Service lets you restore entire systems quickly - minimising downtime when critical infrastructure fails.
Rapid System Recovery
DRaaS provides the ability to rapidly recover critical systems in the event of major failures:
- ●Virtual machine replication to cloud infrastructure
- ●Ability to fail over to cloud-hosted versions of your systems
- ●Minimal Recovery Time Objectives for business-critical applications
- ●Testing capability to ensure recovery actually works
DRaaS is valuable when downtime costs more than the service. If your business loses significant money for every hour a critical system is down, DRaaS reduces that downtime from days to hours (or hours to minutes). DRaaS is scoped per environment based on criticality and budget.
Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
Before you can plan disaster recovery properly, you need to understand what actually matters.
A Business Impact Analysis identifies your critical systems, assesses the impact of their loss, and defines how quickly they need to be recovered.
Critical System Identification
Working with your team to identify:
- ●Which systems and applications are business-critical
- ●Which can be offline for hours, days, or weeks without major impact
- ●Dependencies between systems (what needs what else to function)
- ●Workarounds available during system outages
RTO and RPO Definition
For each critical system, we help you define:
- ●Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - maximum acceptable downtime
- ●Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - maximum acceptable data loss
These objectives drive your backup and recovery strategy. A system with 1-hour RTO needs very different protection than a system with 24-hour RTO.
Impact Assessment
Understanding the business impact of system loss:
- ●Financial impact (lost revenue, missed contracts, penalties)
- ●Operational impact (work stoppage, manual workarounds)
- ●Reputational impact (customer trust, brand damage)
- ●Regulatory impact (compliance breaches, reporting requirements)
A BIA provides the foundation for all other BCDR work. It tells you what to protect and how much to invest in protecting it.
Incident & Ransomware Recovery
When security incidents happen - particularly ransomware - recovery is part of the response process.
Our incident and ransomware recovery service is designed to get you back to business fast after a security event.
Recovery Support
- ●Restoration of affected systems from clean backups
- ●Verification that restored systems are clean before returning to production
- ●Prioritised recovery based on business criticality
- ●Support for business operations during recovery
Clean Recovery
The challenge with ransomware recovery is ensuring you are not restoring the ransomware along with your files. We verify that:
- ●Backups used for recovery are from before the infection
- ●Restored systems are properly patched and hardened
- ●Attacker access has been completely removed
- ●No persistent compromise remains
BCDR Testing & Exercises
Plans and backups do not mean anything if they do not work when you need them. Regular testing proves your recovery capability and identifies problems before they matter.
Backup Restoration Testing
Regular tests of backup restoration to verify:
- ●Backups are actually completing successfully
- ●Restoration process works as expected
- ●Restored data is complete and usable
- ●Recovery Time Objectives are achievable
Recovery Exercises
Structured exercises that simulate disaster scenarios:
- ●Tabletop exercises where teams walk through recovery procedures
- ●Technical recovery tests where systems are actually restored in test environments
- ●Full failover tests for DRaaS environments
- ●Documentation of lessons learned and improvement actions
Continuity Documentation
During a disaster, clear documentation matters. You need runbooks that tell you exactly what to do - contact lists, system diagrams, and recovery procedures.
We maintain this continuity documentation as part of our BCDR services.
Runbooks
Step-by-step procedures for recovering each critical system:
- ●Pre-requisites and dependencies
- ●Exact commands and actions required
- ●Expected outcomes at each step
- ●Troubleshooting guidance for common problems
Runbooks are written to be followed under pressure. They are clear, tested, and kept up to date.
Recovery Documentation
Supporting documentation for recovery:
- ●System architecture and dependencies
- ●Backup locations and credentials
- ●Contact lists (staff, vendors, emergency services)
- ●Communication templates for stakeholders
- ●Decision trees for different scenarios
We maintain this documentation and review it regularly. When something goes wrong, you will have clear guidance on what to do next.
