The Ultimate Guide to Backup and Retention Planning: A Bulletproof Solution by Medha Cloud

In the fast-paced digital landscape, safeguarding critical business data is not just essential; it’s a lifeline for your operations. At Medha Cloud, we understand the challenges faced by organizations, especially when it comes to ensuring long-term robust data backup and retention solutions. Whether dealing with prolonged projects or safeguarding against accidental deletions, our comprehensive guide will help you design a fail-proof backup and retention strategy.

Understanding the problem: Why a solid backup and retention plan matters

Imagine this: A client works on years-long projects and discovers that a critical folder has been missing for months. Worse still, the latest backups no longer include this data. Such scenarios can cripple businesses.

The key requirements for a reliable backup strategy include:

• Retaining data indefinitely.
• Ensuring backups are available for daily, monthly, and yearly recovery points.
• Optimizing storage for long-term use while avoiding redundancy.

Medha Cloud’s proven approach to backup and retention

We recommend a multi-layered strategy using the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) model, seamlessly integrated with advanced tools like Veeam, shadow copies, and cloud services.

1. Primary backup plan with veeam

Daily backups:

• Perform incremental backups for recent activity.
• Retain these for 30 days, ensuring quick access to recently modified data.

Monthly snapshots:

• Use synthetic full backups for storage efficiency.
• Retain monthly backups for 12 months.

Annual snapshots:

• Create a full backup at year-end.
• Retain these indefinitely to meet long-term retention needs.

Offsite backup strategy:

• Mirror the on-premises backups to an offsite NAS.
• Leverage Veeam’s backup copy jobs to ensure offsite copies maintain the same retention policy.

2. Storage capacity planning

To support this strategy for the next 5 years, let’s calculate storage requirements:

• Daily incrementals: 300GB/month.
• Monthly full backups: 12TB/year.
• Annual full backups: 5TB over 5 years.

Total requirement: 22TB (including a 20% growth buffer).
Recommendation: Deploy a NAS with at least 24TB usable storage using RAID-6 or RAID-10 for fault tolerance.

3. Shadow copies as a safety net

While not a replacement for backups, shadow copies provide a convenient way to recover recently deleted or modified files. Configure shadow copies to run twice daily, retaining up to 12 months of snapshots.

Enhancing data security with immutable backups

Medha Cloud advocates for immutable backup repositories to protect against accidental deletions or ransomware attacks. This ensures that your backups remain untampered, offering peace of mind.

Leveraging cloud services for extra redundancy

For clients using OneDrive, integrating Spanning backup with unlimited retention adds another layer of security. This ensures critical files synced to the cloud remain accessible even if deleted locally.

Backup verification and restore testing

A solid backup plan is incomplete without regular validation. Medha Cloud recommends:

• Backup verification jobs to ensure data integrity.
• Routine restore testing to confirm the ability to recover files when needed.

Additional measures to strengthen your backup plan

1. Documentation: Maintain a detailed backup and retention policy for audits and compliance.
2. Client Training: Educate stakeholders on backup best practices and data hygiene.
3. Scalable Solutions: Regularly assess storage needs and upgrade infrastructure as required.

Why Medha Cloud?

At Medha Cloud, we specialize in crafting tailored IT solutions for businesses across industries. With a proven track record in Microsoft 365 administration, cloud services, and backup management, we empower organizations to focus on growth while we handle the complexities of IT infrastructure.

Conclusion: Secure your data for the future

Data is your organization’s most valuable asset, and protecting it requires a strategic and forward-thinking approach. By following the steps outlined above, you can implement a reliable, scalable, and efficient backup solution that meets your business’s unique needs.

Ready to safeguard your business with Medha Cloud’s expertise? Contact us today for a free consultation on creating a bulletproof backup strategy. Let us take your IT solutions to the next level!

Schedule your free consultation now!

Reach us at:

• India: +91 93536 44646
• US: +1 646 775 2855
• Website: www.medhacloud.com
• Email: info@medhacloud.com