Backup and Disaster Recovery for Chicago Businesses That Need to Know Recovery Actually Works
A backup is only useful if you can restore from it. Most businesses find this out the hard way, during a ransomware incident or a failed server, when the backup turns out to be incomplete, untested or missing the system that mattered most.
Datastrive manages backup and disaster recovery for Chicago businesses by starting with a different question than most providers: if something went wrong tonight, which systems does your business actually need to be operational tomorrow? The answer shapes everything else, from what gets backed up, to how often, to what a realistic recovery looks like.
- Chicago-based team serving businesses across Cook, DuPage, Lake and Will counties
- Server, workstation and Microsoft 365 backup covered under a single agreement
- Recovery objectives documented per system and validated through testing, not assumed
- Part of a managed IT agreement or available as a standalone engagement
Book a Free Backup Review
Tell us a little about your business and someone from our team will reach out to set up a time. Your information stays private.
The Problems That Make Backup and Disaster Recovery Fail
Most backup failures follow the same patterns. Understanding them is the first step toward not repeating them.
Backups That Were Never Tested
A backup configuration that runs without errors is not a confirmed backup. It is a backup that has not failed yet in a way anyone noticed. The only way to know a restore works is to run one against real backup data and document the result. Without that, what you have is an assumption.
Ransomware That Reaches the Backup
Standard network-attached backups are accessible to the same ransomware that encrypted production data. When attackers get into a network, backup targets are one of the first things they look for. Backups stored in a way that cannot be modified or deleted after they are written, with copies held offsite, are what separate a recoverable incident from one that isn’t.
Microsoft 365 Is Not Backed Up by Microsoft
Microsoft replicates Microsoft 365 data within their own infrastructure to protect against hardware failure on their end. They do not restore individual mailboxes, SharePoint sites or OneDrive files that were deleted, corrupted or altered beyond their own retention windows. If a user deletes a year of email, or a ransomware attack touches the Microsoft 365 tenant, the backup responsibility is yours. Our Microsoft 365 management services include a discussion of this gap and how to address it.
Recovery Time Assumptions That Don’t Survive Contact With Reality
An RTO of “a few hours” documented in a proposal is not a recovery plan. It is an estimate that hasn’t been tested against your actual environment. How long a restore takes depends on the size of the data set, the speed of the connection, the order systems need to come back online, and whether anyone has a written runbook to follow when it is 2am and the person who set up the backup is unavailable.
No Plan for Who Does What
Recovery has steps, and they need to happen in a specific order. Without a written runbook, recovery becomes improvised under pressure. The people making decisions are doing it without documentation, often without complete information, and often for the first time.
What Datastrive Manages in a Backup and Disaster Recovery Engagement
Server and Workstation Backup
Image-based backups of physical and virtual servers, with workstation file backup included. Retention is set based on your operational requirements and how far back you would realistically need to restore, not on a default that was never reviewed. Backup jobs are monitored for completion and failures get attention, not just a queued alert that nobody checked.
Microsoft 365 Backup
Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams content backed up with point-in-time restore capability, separate from Microsoft’s own replication. When someone permanently deletes a folder or an account gets compromised and mail is deleted, a restore is possible. See our Microsoft 365 management page for the full picture of what ongoing M365 management includes.
Ransomware-Resistant Storage
Backups written in a way that they cannot be modified or deleted once created, with offsite copies stored separately from the production environment. The goal is that even if ransomware reaches every accessible part of the network, the backup copies remain recoverable.
Defined Recovery Objectives Per System
Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective documented for each system, based on what your business actually needs and what the backup infrastructure can realistically deliver. These are not targets pulled from a template. They reflect a conversation about which systems your business can’t function without, how long a gap in each one costs you, and what restoring each one actually requires.
Tested Restores
Restore tests run on a regular schedule, against real backup data, with documented results. Testing is the only validation that matters. The frequency is set based on your environment and risk tolerance. Results are documented so you have a record of the last confirmed successful restore for each covered system.
Disaster Recovery Runbook
A written recovery plan that covers who contacts whom, what gets restored in what order, where credentials and recovery keys are documented, and what the decision points are. The runbook is kept current as the environment changes. When something goes wrong, the team follows a document rather than trying to reconstruct a process under pressure.
Recovery Priorities Come Before Everything Else
The most important conversation in a backup and disaster recovery engagement is not about tools. It is about priorities.
Every business has systems that are more critical than others. The accounting system, the production database, the customer records, the communication platform your team cannot work without. Recovery planning starts by naming those systems and documenting how long each one can be offline before it becomes a serious problem for the business.
Once priorities are clear, backup configurations, restore testing and runbook steps can all be built around them. A Chicago accounting firm and a Chicago manufacturer both need backup and disaster recovery, but they need different things backed up, in a different order, with different recovery objectives. The same configuration applied to both is not a plan.
We also treat your money like it’s ours in this context specifically. If your current backup setup covers the critical systems and just needs monitoring and testing, that is what we’ll say. We are not going to recommend a full replacement when a targeted improvement serves the business better.
Backup and Cyber Insurance
Cyber insurance carriers have become significantly more specific about what they require from backup configurations before writing or renewing a policy. The questions on underwriting forms have moved from “do you have backups?” to asking specifically about immutable storage, offsite copies, tested restores and documented recovery procedures.
We help clients make sure the controls that insurers are looking for are in place and documented before those conversations happen. We don’t provide insurance advice and we can’t predict what any specific carrier will require, but having a backup configuration that is current, tested and documented makes the underwriting process more straightforward.
Backup and Disaster Recovery as Part of IT Services
For most clients, backup and disaster recovery is one component of a broader IT services engagement. It sits alongside network infrastructure management, cybersecurity and IT consulting as a foundational layer. The CIS Controls v8.1 framework, which underpins everything we build, treats backup and recovery as a core control, not an optional add-on.
For businesses that already have IT support and want to address the backup layer specifically, we can scope that as a standalone engagement.
Backup and Disaster Recovery for Chicago Industries
Different industries have different data priorities and different recovery requirements.
Law firms need to recover client communications, document management systems and billing records. Healthcare practices need clinical application access and patient records protected in ways consistent with the sensitivity of that data. Manufacturers often have both office systems and production-adjacent systems, each with different tolerance for downtime. Financial services firms handle client financial data that requires both protection and a documented audit trail of what is backed up and when.
We support businesses across these sectors throughout Chicago and the suburbs. See our industries page for the full list, including legal, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and professional services.
Serving Chicago Businesses Across the Region
From our office in Chicago we support businesses in the city and throughout the suburbs, including Skokie, Schaumburg, Naperville, Oak Brook, Elk Grove Village, Rosemont, Downers Grove and Aurora. Full coverage details are on our Chicagoland service area page.
Frequently Asked Questions About Backup and Disaster Recovery in Chicago
Does Microsoft back up Microsoft 365 data?
What is the difference between RTO and RPO?
What does immutable backup mean?
How often should backups be tested?
What is a disaster recovery runbook?
Can we get backup and disaster recovery without a full IT services agreement?
How do I get support as an existing client?
Find Out Where Your Current Backup Setup Actually Stands
Tell us what you have in place and we will review it: what is covered, what is not, when restores were last tested and where the gaps are. No obligation.
Book a Free Backup Review
Tell us a little about your business and someone from our team will reach out to set up a time. Your information stays private.