Beyond Simple Backups: Protecting Your Business Continuity
In an era of sophisticated ransomware and hardware failure, "saving files to a USB drive" is not a strategy. At Kent-ITS, we apply enterprise-grade Disaster Recovery (DR) principles to every client. Since 2003, we have ensured that our clients' data—from office documents to Paxton Net2 databases—is recoverable, verified, and secure.
The Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) Methodology
We implement the industry-standard GFS rotation to provide multiple recovery points over time. This layered approach ensures that if a file was deleted or corrupted weeks ago, we can still retrieve a clean version.
-
Son (Daily): Incremental backups of the day's changes.
-
Father (Weekly): Full snapshots of the entire system state.
-
Grandfather (Monthly): Long-term archival points for historical compliance and deep recovery.
The Reality of Cloud Backups: The Bandwidth Bottleneck
While "The Cloud" is an excellent tool for offsite redundancy, it is governed by the physical limitations of your internet connection. We design Hybrid Backup Strategies that account for the reality of UK broadband speeds (FTTC/SOGEA).
The Initial Seed Problem
If your business has a 2TB or 3TB data estate, the initial upload can become a major operational hurdle.
-
The Math: On a standard UK connection with a 20Mbps upload speed, a 3TB data set would take approximately 15 to 20 days of continuous, 24/7 uploading to complete.
-
The Risk: During this period, your internet is choked, VoIP call quality drops, and your data isn't fully protected until the upload finishes. Furthermore, if you ever need to download that 3TB after a server failure, your business could be offline for nearly a week just waiting for the data to arrive.
True Air-Gapped Security: Offsite LTO Tape
To bypass the "Cloud Bottleneck" and provide ultimate protection against ransomware, we utilize LTO (Linear Tape-Open) technology.
-
Physical Isolation: Once a tape is ejected, it is "air-gapped"—it has no electrical connection to the network and cannot be encrypted by a cyber-attack.
-
High-Speed Transfers: We can write terabytes of data to a single tape in a few hours, bypassing your internet connection entirely.
-
Offsite Rotation: Tapes are stored offsite, protecting your business against fire, flood, or theft at your primary location.
Data Verification & Integrity Checks
A backup is only as good as its last successful restore. We don't just "set and forget" your backups; we manage the integrity of the data.
-
CRC & Bit-Level Verification: We utilize Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRC) to ensure that every bit written to the backup media matches the original source perfectly.
-
Regular Restore Testing: We perform scheduled "test restores" of critical assets, such as Samba File Servers and Texecom/Net2 configurations, to prove the recovery path works before an emergency occurs.
-
SQL Database Maintenance: For systems like Paxton Net2, we run dedicated maintenance scripts to ensure the database is healthy before the backup process begins.
What We Protect
Our recovery strategies cover your entire technical ecosystem:
-
Server Images: Full "Bare Metal" snapshots of Windows and Linux/Samba servers.
-
Security Configurations: Database backups for your Access Control and Alarm systems.
-
Unified Comms: Configuration data for your VoIP systems and UniFi network architecture.
-
Critical Documents: Your business-critical files, emails, and financial records.
