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Traditional backup needs a rethink

Traditional backup needs a rethink

Backups have long been a foundational element of data protection, but SMBs face a landscape where traditional approaches are no longer sufficient.

Today, modern workloads spread across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. SMBs are storing greater volumes of sensitive data and their ability to protect it underpins customer trust, operational continuity, and compliance. Backup that simply copies files is not enough.

 

 

Insights from the Future of Operations 2025 study highlight that SMBs are increasingly aware of the importance of resilient backup strategies.

Around 40% of SMBs plan to enhance endpoint and infrastructure protection, while a similar proportion intend to leverage third-party expertise for security assessments across multiple operating domains.

These figures indicate that businesses recognise the operational and compliance risks of inadequate backup, including accidental deletion, insider errors, and malicious activity.

Modern threats need modern responses.

Modern threats need modern responses.

For SMBs, the challenge of backup today is multi-dimensional. It is not sufficient to simply store data; organisations need backups that are:

  • Reliable and verifiable: SMBs must be confident that data can be restored when required. Simply copying files without verification or monitoring exposes organisations to the risk of failed recovery when an incident occurs.
  • Protected against tampering or deletion: Ransomware, misconfigurations, or inadvertent errors can compromise backup integrity. Immutable and encrypted storage ensures that backup data remains trustworthy.

 

 

  • Aligned with governance and compliance: Backups should respect retention policies, regulatory requirements, and data classification standards, ensuring that critical data is protected without creating unnecessary overhead.
  • Flexible across hybrid environments: Many SMBs operate across cloud, SaaS, and on-premises systems. A growing number are also exploring edge technologies as a result of AI adoptions.

This results in an increased need for solutions that can orchestrate backup and recovery seamlessly across all of these environments.

Backup strategies should align with incident response policies.

Backup strategies should align with incident response policies.

Imagine a ransomware attack scenario that has encrypted key financial and customer files. With a modern backup strategy service offering aligned tightly to incident response policies:

  • Automated verification confirms that backup data is complete and untampered.
  • Immutable backups protect against ransomware altering or deleting copies.
  • Clear classification and retention policies ensure critical workloads are restored first.

 

  • Rapid recovery workflows, established as part of incident response measures minimise downtime for restored operations. Done well, this is a matter of hours rather than days, which shields business from ripple-out damage to productivity, revenue generating transactions, and customer experience.

This simple example highlights that backup and recovery can no longer exist in isolation.

Effective data protection must integrate security, governance, and operational continuity, creating a system that mitigates risk while supporting business objectives.

Balancing security, governance and continuity.

Balancing security, governance and continuity.

As previous posts in this series have highlighted, backup strategies are only as strong as the broader data protection frameworks in which they operate. SMBs that have structured governance and clear data classification are better positioned to prioritise critical workloads, apply retention and access policies, and recover efficiently from incidents.

Similarly, verifying and securing backups ensures that recovery processes are not only fast but reliable, even when insider errors or external threats occur.

When these elements are combined, SMBs gain more than just restorable data; they achieve operational data resilience. They can confidently maintain business operations during disruptions, demonstrate regulatory compliance, and reduce the likelihood of operational or enterprise risk escalating into financial or reputational damage.

Solutioning for emerging SMB needs.

Solutioning for emerging SMB needs.

Partners play a pivotal role in designing and implementing backup strategies that meet these requirements. Rather than presenting technology as a series of discrete tools, the emphasis is on integrating backup, governance, and security into a coherent, manageable workflow.

  • Ensure backup integrity and verification through automated testing and monitoring, confirming that data is recoverable and reliable.
  • Protect backup data with immutability and encryption, safeguarding against accidental deletion, insider errors, or ransomware.
  • Automate retention and policy compliance, ensuring that critical data is retained appropriately and that auditability requirements are met.
  • Enable rapid recovery across hybrid environments, allowing critical applications and workloads to be restored without operational disruption.

These requirements are met in real-world scenarios through platforms that allow partners to orchestrate policies, monitoring, and recovery workflows in a way that addresses SMB risk exposure, reduces IT effort, and ensures compliance. By combining these layers, partners transform backup and recovery from a technical task into a strategic service offering.

Positioning for a growing opportunity.

Positioning for a growing opportunity.

The integration of security and continuity solutions and services needed for operational data resilience is an emerging opportunity to deliver high-value, managed services that integrate risk reduction, operational resilience, and governance:

  • Design policies and frameworks for SMBs that ensure backups are verifiable, immutable, and compliant with enterprise and IT risk reduction objectives.
  • Integrate monitoring and verification workflows into backup processes to provide confidence that recovery will succeed when needed.

 

  • Combine backup with data classification and governance practices to ensure that resources are focused on critical assets, aligning technical measures with business priorities.

Where SMBs lack internal expertise, partners can provide end-to-end managed services covering implementation, monitoring, recovery testing, and reporting.

By positioning backup and recovery as a strategic, integrated service, partners can help SMBs maintain resilience, safeguard operations, and align IT practices with business objectives all while establishing a high-value, recurring service offering.

Build your Data Protection practice, with Crayon

Build your Data Protection practice, with Crayon

Our in-house team of security and continuity experts can work with partners to:

  • guide go-to-market positioning that connects Data Protection strategies to the priority objectives for your business and IT stakeholders
  • explore new service line opportunities such as backup readiness assessments that include governance, classification, and recovery processes.
  • help you to map customer workloads and critical assets to a verified, secure backup strategy that supports public and hybrid cloud, and on-premises environments.

Simply select ‘Cybersecurity’ and/or ”Continuity’ in the form when you leave your details, and we’ll be in touch to get the ball rolling!

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