Why “we have a backup” is not enough
Many SMEs see a green tick in a dashboard or a synced cloud folder and feel safe. Until someone deletes a folder, ransomware hits, or a laptop dies — and nobody knows how to restore, who may start, or which point in time you want back. Sync is not backup; we covered that in why cloud is not a backup. This piece is the next step: practise.
A restore exercise is not a drama drill. It is an agreed, bounded test: one scenario, one outcome, a short note of what worked and what stuck.
What the exercise actually checks
Keep it small enough to do this quarter or this year:
- files — restore a shared folder or a critical project folder to a test location;
- mailbox — restore one mailbox or a set of messages without overwriting the live inbox;
- one endpoint — restore one workplace or laptop, or the files on it;
- time and loss in plain words — how long until usable (recovery time) and to which moment you went back (loss to the restore point).
Write those two numbers down after the exercise. No marketing targets — a realistic picture for your firm.
Who owns it — and how often
Without an owner, “we should test sometime” stays on the pile. Agree: who schedules the exercise, who may start a restore, and who gets the note. Under Floor ICT MSP the technical restore sits with management if you have Elite; when and what you practise stays yours.
For a small SME a simple annual exercise is already a win; if your data is more critical, practise more often — for example a smaller test each quarter. That is practice, not a standard we impose.
What Floor ICT Elite covers — and what you decide
Essential covers monitoring and remote help without antivirus or backup. Advanced adds antivirus and ransomware protection (Bitdefender on the Advanced path). Elite uses Acronis Cyber Protect for antivirus and managed workplace backup — never two antivirus products at once. Cloud licences (Google Workspace / Microsoft 365) and tenant backup stay separate agreements.
We invent no recovery times in this article. We do say: if backup is in your package, a planned restore exercise belongs with decent management — you request it via the ticket portal or in the intake.
Go deeper
Practise without breaking production
Restore to a test folder, a temporary mailbox or a spare workplace. Note what you did. Overwriting live data is not an exercise — that is an incident.
Recovery time and restore point without jargon
Recovery time: how long work may sit still until it is usable again. Restore point: to which moment you accept data loss. Both are business choices; the tool measures them, you set the bar.
Cloud beside workplace backup
OneDrive or Drive syncs; Elite backup covers workplaces. Mail or tenant backup needs a separate scope. Say in the intake what is critical — otherwise you practise the wrong thing.