Pro-Owner perspective: This document frames your systems as a technical estate — an asset to be stewarded, documented, and bequeathed. Treat these steps as craftsmanship: protect the continuity, auditability, and transferability of your digital legacy.

What it is

A non-negotiable backup standard enforcing the 3-2-1 rule: 3 copies of data, on 2 different media types, with 1 copy offsite. Applies to all production data, configuration files, and critical documentation. Backups run automatically, validation tests run nightly, and restore drills happen quarterly.

The standard includes: backup scope (what gets backed up), frequency (daily incremental, weekly full), retention (30 days hot, 1 year cold, 7 years compliance), and restore targets (RTO: 4 hours, RPO: 24 hours).

Why it matters

Backups you haven't tested are hope, not backups. The standard eliminates ambiguity (what counts as "backed up"?) and creates muscle memory for restores via quarterly drills. Without systematic validation, you discover backup failures during disasters—when it's too late.

The standard prevents three failure modes: (1) backups silently failing for months, (2) restore procedures unknown/untested, (3) backup retention too short to recover from delayed-discovery incidents (ransomware dormant for 90 days).

How we do it

1. Backup scope: Define what gets backed up:
   • Tier 1 (Critical): Databases, user data, config files, secrets. Daily incremental, weekly full. 30-day hot, 1-year cold, 7-year archive.
   • Tier 2 (Important): Application logs, metrics, documentation. Weekly full. 30-day hot, 90-day cold.
   • Tier 3 (Recoverable): Temporary files, caches, build artifacts. No backup (can be regenerated).
2. 3-2-1 implementation:
   • Copy 1: Primary storage (production systems).
   • Copy 2: Separate media (NAS, secondary disk array).
   • Copy 3: Offsite (cloud storage, geographically separated).
3. Automated validation: Nightly checks:
   • Backup job completed successfully (exit code 0).
   • Backup size within expected range (detect silent corruption).
   • Random file restore test (validates integrity).
4. Quarterly restore drills: Full system restore from backup, timed, documented. Drill report includes: actual RTO, blockers encountered, procedure improvements.

What you receive

• Backup inventory: All systems, backup scope, frequency, retention, last successful backup.
• Validation dashboard: Daily backup success/failure, alerts for anomalies.
• RTO/RPO targets: Per-system restore time and data loss tolerance.
• Drill reports: Quarterly restore drill results, trend analysis, improvement actions.
• DR runbook: Step-by-step restore procedures, contact lists, decision trees.

All artifacts stored in version-controlled repository (Git) and offsite (separate from backup storage).

Evidence

Interactive backup recipe:

• Prerequisites: What to configure before first backup (storage, credentials, network).
• Minimum configuration: 3-2-1 setup for single system (script + walkthrough).
• Robust configuration: Multi-tier setup with automated validation (script + architecture diagram).
• Toggle between minimum vs robust to see delta (cost, complexity, recovery speed).

Download backup standard package (scripts + runbook + drill templates): [Link]

Failure modes & guardrails

Failure mode: Backups succeed but restores fail
Guardrail: Quarterly drill mandatory. Simulated failures (deleted database, corrupted config) with timed restore.

Failure mode: Backup storage co-located with production
Guardrail: Offsite copy required. Same datacenter/cloud region doesn't count as offsite.

Failure mode: Retention too short
Guardrail: Minimum 1-year cold storage for critical data. Compliance data 7 years.

Failure mode: Backup credentials stored insecurely
Guardrail: Secrets vault for backup credentials. Rotated quarterly. Never in config files.