Backup & disaster recovery
Back up what matters. Plan how to get it back.
Protect the files, Microsoft 365 data, servers and applications your business depends on. Hudson MSP helps Texas teams review backup coverage, test selected restores and plan which systems need to return first.
Choose your starting point
What do you need to feel ready?
Choose the question closest to your situation. We will help define the systems, work and responsibilities involved.
Are our current backups enough?
Review what is covered, how far back copies go and what your restore tests show. Identify the gaps to address first.
Review existing backupsWe need better backup coverage.
Discuss protection for Microsoft 365, servers, cloud data or selected devices, with retention and access suited to your business.
Discuss backup coverageCan we recover after an outage?
Plan which systems must return first, what they need to run and who will act. Agree on a restore test and document what it shows.
Plan a recovery testExploring on your own? Take the backup readiness assessment or estimate restoration time below. Service coverage and costs are confirmed in your proposal.
What is the difference between backup and recovery?
Backups provide recovery copies. A recovery plan brings together the systems, people and steps needed to use them when work is disrupted.
Backup protects copies. Disaster recovery defines how operations return.
Backup creates recoverable copies of data and systems. Disaster recovery is the plan for restoring business operations. It brings together those copies, the required technology, staff, providers and recovery priorities.
A successful backup job matters only if the right data can be restored.
Estimate how long a restore could take.
Enter your data size, restore speed and recovery assumptions to compare an estimated timeline with your target. This planning tool uses the assumptions shown with its results; it does not test your backups or promise a recovery time.
Recovery Plans Should Account for More Than One Type of Failure
Business data can become unavailable through security incidents, equipment failure, deletion, cloud disruption, or extended downtime. The recovery plan should reflect the systems and risks that matter to the business.
Ransomware and destructive attacks
Protected restore points and recovery planning can give the business more recovery options when production systems or accounts are compromised.
Hardware and server failure
Servers, storage, and endpoints can fail without warning. Recovery planning reduces uncertainty when critical systems stop working.
Accidental deletion
Files, mailboxes, folders, and application data may be deleted or overwritten. Retention and restore options can preserve earlier versions.
Cloud data loss
Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams-related data may require deliberate backup and retention planning.
Cloud and application disruption
Hosted systems can be affected by configuration errors, account compromise, vendor incidents, or unavailable integrations.
Extended business downtime
Without documented priorities and recovery ownership, technical incidents can create longer operational interruptions.
Choose backup coverage by system importance, recovery need, and business impact.
Hudson MSP can review what needs backup and how long to keep it. We can help choose storage, control restore access and plan the recovery steps. The scope should fit your systems and business priorities.
Server Backup
Protection planning for physical and virtual servers, shared files, line-of-business systems, and workloads that support daily operations.
Microsoft 365 Backup
Backup and recovery planning for Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams-related data based on business and retention needs.
Cloud Data Protection
Protection planning for cloud-hosted files, applications, platforms, and business data that may not be covered by default vendor retention.
Endpoint Backup
Backup options for selected workstations and mobile users where important business files are stored outside centralized systems.
Immutable or protected restore-point planning
Recovery planning that considers protected or immutable restore points to help reduce the risk of recovery data being altered or encrypted.
Restore Testing
Test restores, recovery validation, documentation, and issue tracking so backup success is measured by recoverability rather than job completion alone.
Cloud Availability Is Not the Same as a Complete Backup Strategy
Cloud availability does not answer every recovery question. Plan for deleted data, retention limits, compromised accounts and application errors. Define what happens when staff leave and who owns recovery. Compare Microsoft 365 recovery options below.
Which Microsoft 365 recovery option fits the problem?
A deleted file, a departed employee and a large-scale incident need different recovery paths. Use this comparison to ask better questions about your environment. Availability depends on your settings, licenses, permissions and the restore points that still exist.
6 options shown.
| Option | When it may help | What to verify first |
|---|---|---|
| SharePoint and Teams file recycle bins | A file or library item was deleted. Teams files stored in SharePoint use that storage service's recovery path. | Check both recycle-bin stages and the original deletion date. Microsoft documents 93 days across both stages in SharePoint in Microsoft 365; moving between stages does not restart that period. Microsoft's recycle-bin guidance. |
| SharePoint version history | A document was overwritten or edited incorrectly and an earlier version is available. | Confirm versioning, retained versions and your permissions. Restoring an earlier file version does not rebuild the full application or business workflow. Microsoft's version-restore guidance. |
| Deleted employee's OneDrive | Business files remain in the OneDrive of a user whose account was deleted. | Check the deletion date, configured retention and any applicable hold. Default OneDrive retention is 30 days, with a later 93-day deleted-site recovery period; tenant policies can change the path. An administrator may be needed. Microsoft's deleted-OneDrive guidance. |
| Purview retention policies and labels | The organization needs to preserve or delete defined content under an information-governance policy. | Check which locations and users the policy covers and whether it retains, deletes, or retains then deletes. Preserving content does not establish a tested return-to-work time. Microsoft's retention guidance. |
| Microsoft 365 Backup | Protected Exchange mailboxes, OneDrive accounts or SharePoint sites need recovery from a backup restore point. | Confirm the service was configured for the affected data before the loss. Check available restore points, scope, billing and recovery procedures; a Microsoft 365 subscription alone is not proof that this backup service is enabled. Microsoft's Backup overview. |
| Exchange Online deleted-message recovery | An email message was deleted from a user's mailbox and the item remains recoverable. | Check the mailbox, deletion date, configured deleted-item retention and administrator permissions. Recovery of purged messages depends on the applicable retention and recovery settings; do not assume every deleted email remains available. Microsoft's deleted-message guidance. |
No matching option. Try a broader term such as file, user, retention or backup.
Questions to settle before you need a restore
Is retention the same as a backup?
They serve different decisions. Retention controls how defined content is kept or deleted. A backup service provides recovery copies and restore procedures within its own scope. Evaluate both against the loss you need to recover from, the restore point you need and the time your business can wait.
Can we recover a departed employee's data?
Possibly. Establish which account was deleted, when it happened, where the data lived and which retention or backup policies applied. User-account recovery and data recovery have different requirements. Preserve the available information and have an authorized administrator check the supported route before making further account changes.
What should a restore test actually prove?
Choose a specific workflow, recovery point and safe restore destination. Record the start and finish criteria, dependencies, access needed, issues found and who confirmed the restored data was usable. Compare the measured result with your recovery-time and data-loss targets. A file opening successfully does not prove every business system can return within the target.
Next: check your backup readiness, estimate the time needed for a restore, or review Microsoft 365 administration when ownership and settings need attention.
Completed Northwest Austin project
A tax-season recovery plan put to the test.
For a 15-person accounting firm in Northwest Austin, recovery testing revealed an incomplete backup of the tax database. Hudson MSP implemented hourly local snapshots, immutable nightly cloud copies, Microsoft 365 backup and a written recovery runbook, then rehearsed a full failover before tax season.
Hudson's published project record reports that, when a server storage controller later failed, staff regained access to the tax system in 1 hour 55 minutes, with 40 minutes of work to redo and no missed client deadlines. These are results reported for this completed project; each organization's recovery requirements need their own assessment and testing.
What the team planned and what the project record reports
- Recovery target
- Return the priority system within four hours, with no more than one hour of recent work lost.
- Gap found during testing
- The tax-database backup was incomplete.
- Recovery preparation
- Hourly local snapshots, immutable nightly cloud copies, 90-day retention, standby virtualization, Microsoft 365 backup and a written runbook.
- Rehearsal
- A full failover exercise in January, before tax season.
- Reported incident outcome
- Access to the tax system restored in 1 hour 55 minutes; 40 minutes of work to redo.
What another business can take from this
A completed backup job would not have exposed the missing database on its own. Choose a critical workflow, test the data and dependencies it needs, then record who confirms it is usable. Compare the test with the recovery-time and data-loss targets before relying on the plan.
Use the backup readiness assessment to identify the questions your own restore test needs to answer.
Source: Hudson MSP's published completed-work map, “Backup and disaster recovery before tax season — Northwest Austin.” Client identity and exact address are withheld. The public summary does not provide the underlying incident log or test timestamps, so these figures should not be treated as a recovery-time guarantee for another business.
Customer feedback on backup and network support
“Since they cleaned up our network and improved our backup systems, everything has been running much more smoothly.”
Google review excerpt · Read on Google
Selected excerpts from customer reviews. Each describes that customer’s experience.
A Practical Backup and Disaster Recovery Process
Effective recovery begins before an incident. Hudson MSP focuses on business priorities, protected data, recovery dependencies, restore validation, and clear next steps.
Assess
Identify critical systems, data locations, current backup coverage, recovery expectations, and operational dependencies.
Design
Define backup scope, retention, storage protection, administrative access, recovery priorities, and testing requirements.
Verify
Review backup status, test selected restores, document issues, and confirm recovery procedures are understandable and usable.
Recover
Coordinate recovery steps, restore systems or data where appropriate, communicate status, and document lessons after an incident.
See our Dallas business continuity case study for another example of recovery planning and tested restores.
Backups Should Be Protected as Part of Your Cybersecurity Strategy
Attackers may target live systems, administrator accounts and backup storage. Protect recovery copies and limit access to them. Coordinate restores with incident response, and check that systems are safe and usable before returning them to service.
Protected Administrative Access
Limit backup administration, review privileged access, and separate recovery permissions where practical so one compromised account does not automatically expose recovery systems.
Immutable or Isolated Restore Points
Consider storage options that help reduce the ability of attackers or malware to alter recovery data.
Security-Aware Recovery
Coordinate restoration with investigation, containment, credential changes, endpoint security, and network controls.
Restore Validation
Confirm restored data and systems are usable and appropriate before reconnecting them to normal business operations.
Recovery and cybersecurity should support the same incident plan.
Connect backup readiness with cybersecurity, network management, and managed IT support.
Why choose Hudson MSP for backup and recovery
Get a recovery plan built around the systems you must bring back.
Hudson connects backup coverage with the accounts, applications, network and people needed to restore operations. You get a clearer picture of what can be recovered, what needs testing and who will handle the next step.
Find the gaps a completed backup job can miss
We review selected restores, retention and recovery records to check whether important data is usable. Findings become documented issues to address before the business needs those copies.
Keep security decisions connected to restoration
After an attack, restoring files is one part of the work. Hudson connects recovery with containment, account access and device protection so the recovery plan accounts for the incident.
Plan for the systems that make restored data useful
Internet access, identity, applications, hardware and vendors can all affect a restore. We bring those dependencies into the conversation alongside the protected data.
Connect recovery with managed IT · View Texas service coverage
Choose what must return first
We help define critical workloads, restore priorities, authorization and testing requirements around your operations. Coverage and recovery responsibilities are agreed for your environment.
Backup and Recovery Support Across Hudson MSP's Core Texas Markets
Hudson MSP provides backup and disaster recovery planning as part of broader IT support across Austin, Georgetown, North Dallas and San Antonio.
Austin and Georgetown businesses
Recovery planning integrated with managed IT, cybersecurity, cloud, and local on-site support where needed.
Explore Austin MetroPlano and North Dallas businesses
Backup and continuity planning connected to support, security, network management, and device operations.
Explore North DallasSan Antonio-area businesses
Recovery readiness for organizations that need coordinated support across cloud, security, backup, and infrastructure.
Explore San Antonio MetroBackup and Disaster Recovery Questions
Direct answers about backup scope, restore testing, ransomware recovery, Microsoft 365 protection, and recovery objectives.
What is the difference between backup and disaster recovery?
Backup creates recoverable copies of data or systems. Disaster recovery defines how the business will restore technology and resume work after a disruption. It includes people, priorities, access, providers and tested recovery steps.
Does Microsoft 365 automatically back up all business data?
Microsoft 365 has availability, retention and recovery features. Check whether they meet your needs before relying on them as your backup strategy. Review email, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams-related data, including retention limits, restore access and testing.
What are the limitations of cloud backups?
A large cloud restore can take time. It depends on your download speed, provider access, restore tools and the systems needed to use the data. Check retention limits, permissions and restore or transfer charges. Protect copies from unauthorized changes or deletion. Test a realistic restore against your recovery target.
How often should a business back up its data?
Set the schedule around how much recent work you can afford to lose. A busy database may need more frequent backups than an archive. Define that limit as a recovery point objective for each important system. Check that your backup schedule meets it. Nightly backups can leave a full day of work at risk.
How often should backups be tested?
Set a test schedule based on each system’s importance and rate of change. Test again after major application, backup or recovery changes. File tests check data recovery. Application tests should also check sign-in, required services and whether staff can use the restored system. Record the restore point, time taken, result and issues.
Can backups help after a ransomware attack?
Backups can help if usable recovery copies remain protected. Coordinate the restore with incident containment, account security and checks on restored systems. Backups alone do not prevent ransomware.
What systems should a business back up?
Back up the data and systems your business needs to operate. This can include servers, shared files, Microsoft 365, cloud storage, key devices, applications and configuration records. Review what would happen if each system became unavailable, then define coverage.
What are recovery time and recovery point objectives?
Recovery time objective (RTO) is your target time to restore a system. Recovery point objective (RPO) is how much recent data you can afford to lose. A four-hour RTO and one-hour RPO mean targeting a four-hour restore with at most one hour of lost work. These are planning targets. Backup settings and recovery tests must support them.
Do small businesses need disaster recovery planning?
Yes. Small businesses can be disrupted when a key system fails. A practical plan lists critical data and systems, recovery steps, provider contacts and who owns each task. It helps staff respond when normal access is unavailable.
Can Hudson MSP review an existing backup setup?
Yes. Hudson MSP can review your backup coverage, retention, access controls, restore tests and records. We compare the current setup with your recovery needs, identify gaps and recommend priorities.
What affects the cost of backup and recovery services?
Cost depends on the systems and data you need to protect, how often copies are taken, how long they are kept and how quickly the business needs to recover. Storage, Microsoft 365 users, recovery infrastructure and the scope of restore testing can also affect the proposal. Ask which setup, storage, testing and recovery charges are included, and which would be separate.
What should our backup proposal include or exclude?
Check that it names the protected systems, backup frequency, retention, restore responsibilities and testing scope. It should also explain dependencies and exclusions, such as uncovered applications, replacement hardware, provider transfer charges or incident-response work. A successful backup job does not establish that every application or business workflow is covered. Hudson confirms service coverage and costs in your proposal.
What should we bring to a backup review?
Start with a list of critical systems, your current backup provider and any reports or restore-test records you already have. Identify which work must restart first, how much recent data you can afford to lose and who can approve recovery decisions. You can begin with unanswered questions; the readiness checklist helps identify them. Do not send passwords or confidential system details through the inquiry form.
Tell us what you need to protect or restore.
Tell us about your current backup setup or the change you are planning. We will clarify the systems in scope, recovery priorities and next steps. If you are unsure, start with what your team could not work without.
- Priority: What systems, files, cloud services, and applications must return first?
- Dependency: What identity, network, hardware, licensing, vendor, and access dependencies are required?
- Authority: Who can approve restoration, communicate priorities, and return systems to normal use?
Talk with our team
Use this form for a new service inquiry. For an existing support issue, use the Client Help Desk.