backupplanning

Backup planning is a process that defines strategies, policies, and procedures for protecting data through backups and ensuring recoverability after data loss incidents, hardware failures, or cyber events. It covers what data to back up, how often, where backups are stored, and how restorations are performed.

Key elements include data inventory and classification, defined recovery objectives (recovery point objective, RPO, and recovery time objective, RTO), retention periods, backup frequency, and restoration procedures. The plan should specify backup methods such as full backups, incremental backups, and differential backups, as well as considerations for metadata, catalogs, and system states.

Backup strategies commonly combine full backups with incremental or differential backups, along with replication and offsite or offline copies for resilience. The 3-2-1 rule is a widely cited guideline: at least three copies of data, on two different media types, with one copy stored offsite.

Storage and technology choices include on-premises, cloud, and hybrid configurations. Storage options encompass disk, tape, and object storage, often with deduplication, compression, and encryption. Automation and versioning help reduce manual errors and improve reliability, while verification processes confirm that backups can be restored.

Governance and operations emphasize regular restore testing, validation of backup catalogs, monitoring, and incident response integration. Documentation should outline roles and responsibilities, retention schedules, and detailed recovery procedures, with attention to regulatory and compliance requirements.

Practical considerations include minimizing backup windows, avoiding single points of failure, and implementing air-gapped or immutable backups when possible. Training staff in restoration procedures and maintaining a current, tested plan are essential to effective backup planning.