Know your data is actually safe

We set up automated, tested backups and disaster recovery plans, so you're never one bad deployment or server failure away from losing everything.

Overview

Most teams discover their backup strategy has a hole in it at the worst possible moment: mid-restoration, watching a script fail against a backup file that turns out to be corrupted, incomplete, or simply too old to matter. Backups that exist but have never been tested aren't really a safety net, they're an assumption dressed up as a plan. Disaster recovery preparation only proves its worth once, during an actual emergency, which is exactly why it can't be treated as a checkbox configured once and left alone.

We build automated, redundant backup systems tailored to how your data actually changes, not a generic nightly snapshot applied blindly regardless of your transaction volume or how much data loss would actually be acceptable to your business. High-write applications need tighter backup intervals than a mostly-static content site, and the recovery plan needs to reflect that difference explicitly rather than applying the same interval everywhere out of convenience. Every backup strategy is paired with defined recovery time and recovery point objectives, specific numbers your team can plan around rather than a vague assurance that 'we've got backups.'

Critically, we test restoration regularly, not just configure the backup and assume it works. A disaster recovery plan that's never been rehearsed tends to reveal its gaps at the worst possible time, when pressure is highest and improvisation is riskiest. By the time something actually goes wrong, whether that's accidental deletion, corruption, or a full infrastructure failure, the recovery process should already be a known, practiced quantity rather than something your team is figuring out live under stress.

What we do

Backup and recovery infrastructure that's actually been tested, not just assumed to work.

01

Automated, Redundant Backup Architecture

We design backup schedules and storage architecture around your specific data profile: transaction volume, how quickly data changes, and what level of data loss, if any occurred, would actually be acceptable to your business in a worst-case scenario. This might mean continuous or near-continuous backups for a high-transaction application where losing even an hour of data has real consequences, or a lighter daily schedule for something more static where that same interval would be needlessly aggressive. Backups are stored redundantly across multiple locations, so a single point of failure in your storage provider doesn't also take out your recovery option, which is a surprisingly common gap in setups where backups exist but live in the same infrastructure as the primary system they're meant to protect. We also account for retention policy, since keeping every backup indefinitely creates its own cost and complexity problems, balancing how far back you genuinely need recovery options against storage costs that scale with retention length. The result is a backup architecture designed around your actual risk profile rather than a one-size-fits-all template applied without much thought to whether it truly fits your situation.

02

Scheduled Restoration Testing

A backup you've never actually restored from is a hypothesis, not a guarantee, so we run scheduled restoration tests on a recurring basis, actually pulling a backup and confirming it restores cleanly and completely rather than just confirming the backup job completed without error. This distinction matters more than it sounds: backup jobs can report success while still producing a file that's subtly corrupted, incomplete, or incompatible with the restoration tooling by the time it's actually needed. Every restoration test is documented, including how long the process took, which becomes genuinely useful data for setting realistic recovery time expectations rather than guessing. If a restoration test surfaces a problem, whether that's a compatibility issue, a permissions gap, or missing data, we fix it immediately as part of the standard backup process rather than treating it as a rare edge case to worry about only once. This ongoing verification is what separates a backup system you can actually trust from one that simply appears to be working because nobody's checked.

03

Documented Recovery Plan with Defined Objectives

Beyond the technical backup infrastructure, we build a written, step-by-step disaster recovery plan defining exactly what happens when something goes wrong: who's responsible for what, in what order systems get restored, and how success gets verified once recovery is complete. This plan is anchored to specific recovery time objectives, how long recovery is expected to take, and recovery point objectives, how much data loss is acceptable measured in time, both calibrated to your actual business needs rather than generic industry benchmarks that may not reflect your specific tolerance for downtime or data loss. Having these numbers defined in advance matters enormously during an actual incident, since it removes ambiguity about whether a recovery is proceeding acceptably or whether escalation is warranted. The plan also covers less obvious scenarios beyond simple data loss, like a full infrastructure provider outage or a security incident requiring recovery from a known-clean backup point, so the plan holds up under a range of actual failure modes rather than only the most straightforward one.

Our Process

  1. 01

    Data Risk & Recovery Objective Assessment

    We start by understanding your specific data: how frequently it changes, what different categories of data actually matter most, and what level of data loss or downtime would genuinely be acceptable in a worst-case scenario. This shapes concrete recovery time and recovery point objectives specific to your business, rather than applying generic industry defaults that may not reflect your actual tolerance for risk.

  2. 02

    Backup Architecture Design & Implementation

    Based on the assessed objectives, we design and implement an automated backup schedule and redundant storage architecture, ensuring backups exist in locations genuinely independent from your primary infrastructure. This includes configuring retention policies that balance recovery flexibility against storage cost, rather than defaulting to keeping everything indefinitely without a clear reason.

  3. 03

    Initial Restoration Verification

    Before considering the backup system complete, we run a full restoration test to confirm the entire pipeline actually works end to end, not just that backup jobs complete without reporting errors. This initial verification often surfaces configuration issues that are far cheaper to fix now than to discover during an actual emergency months later.

  4. 04

    Recovery Plan Documentation

    We document the complete disaster recovery procedure in writing: specific steps, responsible parties, and expected timelines for different failure scenarios, from accidental data deletion to a full infrastructure outage. This plan is written to be usable under pressure, meaning clear and specific rather than requiring interpretation or expert judgment calls in the moment.

  5. 05

    Recurring Testing & Plan Refinement

    On an ongoing schedule, we re-run restoration tests and review the recovery plan against any changes to your infrastructure or data since the last review. Systems evolve, and a recovery plan that was accurate a year ago can quietly become outdated as new data sources, integrations, or architecture changes get introduced without a corresponding update to the plan.

Backup & disaster recovery technology stack

We implement backup and disaster recovery using proven cloud infrastructure and storage platforms.

AWS logo
Docker logo

Frequently Asked Questions

We base backup frequency on your data's actual change rate and what level of data loss would genuinely be acceptable to your business, measured as a recovery point objective. A high-transaction application processing constant orders needs far more frequent backups than a mostly-static content site, and we calibrate the schedule to that reality rather than applying one interval across every situation.

A backup job reporting success only confirms the process ran without error, not that the resulting file is complete, uncorrupted, and actually restorable. Reliability comes from regularly testing full restoration, not just trusting a completion notification, which is why scheduled restoration testing is a core part of this service rather than an optional add-on.

This depends on your specific recovery time objective, which we define together based on realistic testing rather than a theoretical estimate. Because we test restoration regularly and document how long it actually takes, you have a genuine, evidence-based answer to this question rather than an untested assumption about how fast recovery would go.

Yes, backups are stored redundantly across locations separate from your primary infrastructure specifically to avoid a single failure taking out both your live system and your recovery option simultaneously. This is a common gap in setups configured without dedicated attention to disaster recovery, and it's one of the first things we correct.

Yes, we regularly take over backup and recovery planning for systems built elsewhere. We start with an assessment of the current data architecture and any existing backup setup, since understanding what's already in place, and what gaps exist, shapes the right approach going forward rather than assuming a blank slate.

No, we define a retention policy based on how far back genuine recovery flexibility is needed balanced against storage costs that scale with how long backups are kept. Keeping every backup indefinitely without a clear reason adds cost and complexity without meaningfully improving your actual recovery capability.

Yes, the recovery plan is built to hold up across a range of failure modes, including full infrastructure provider outages and recovery from a known-clean point following a security incident, not just the simpler scenario of someone deleting the wrong records. Covering only the easiest case would leave real gaps in an actual emergency.

We build in recurring reviews specifically to catch this. As new data sources, integrations, or infrastructure changes get introduced, the recovery plan and backup configuration get reassessed and updated accordingly, rather than being written once and left to quietly go stale as the underlying systems evolve around it.

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Database Backup & Disaster Recovery | Shiromi