Disaster Recovery & Backup · Thunder Bay
Disaster recovery that gets you back online fast.
When ransomware hits or hardware fails, your recovery speed depends entirely on the plan you set up before it happened. We build it, test it, and stand behind it.
Backups aren't enough — you need a recovery plan.
Many businesses have some form of backup — an external drive, a cloud sync. But when something actually goes wrong, they discover the backup wasn't working, wasn't complete, or takes days to restore.
DVG Systems sets up automated, verified backups and tests your recovery procedure — so when you need it, it works. Our network security services reduce the risk of needing recovery in the first place, while our managed IT includes continuous backup monitoring.
- Automated daily (or more frequent) backups
- Local + offsite cloud redundancy (3-2-1 rule)
- Backup monitoring — alerts if a job fails
- Ransomware-resistant immutable backup options
- Documented and tested recovery procedures
- Recovery time objective (RTO) planning
What disruptions we protect against
- Ransomware and malware encryption
- Hardware failure (drives, servers)
- Accidental file deletion
- Power outages and surges
- Natural disasters and flooding
- Theft or physical damage
The 3-2-1 Backup Rule
The standard used by IT professionals to ensure your data survives any scenario.
The original plus two backups — so a single failure never wipes everything.
e.g. local NAS and cloud — different media means different failure modes.
A ransomware attack or office fire can't destroy a backup stored in the cloud or at another location.
Why a recovery plan matters
Almost every business believes it's backed up. The painful discoveries happen at restore time: the backup drive quietly stopped working months ago, it only ever copied one folder, or the "restore" turns out to take days the business doesn't have. A backup you've never tested isn't a safety net — it's a guess. The real question isn't "do we have a backup?" It's "if we lost everything this morning, how many hours until we're working again, and how much data would we lose?" Those two numbers — how fast you recover and how much you can afford to lose — are what an actual disaster recovery plan is built around.
How DVG handles it
We set up backups that run automatically and verify themselves, so a failed job raises an alert instead of sitting silently broken. Then we do the part most setups skip: we test the recovery. We confirm that data actually restores, document the steps to bring your business back online, and plan around a realistic recovery time so there are no surprises on the worst day. Immutable, ransomware-resistant backup options mean that even an attacker who gets into your network can't quietly encrypt or delete the copy you'd rely on to recover.
When "disaster" means weather
Up here, disaster often just means weather. Ice storms and downed lines cause power outages that outlast a desktop battery, spring melt brings flooding, and a remote site can be cut off from help for longer than a city business ever would be. That's exactly why an offsite copy matters so much in Northern Ontario — a fire, flood, or theft at your office can't reach a backup that's safely in the cloud. And when a recovery is needed, we can begin restoring remotely rather than waiting on a technician to reach a site that the highway or the weather has cut off.
Backup & recovery: common questions
We already back up to an external drive — isn't that enough?
It's a start, but a single on-site drive is vulnerable to the exact events you're protecting against: fire, flood, theft, and ransomware can all take out the drive sitting next to the computer. It also can't help if it silently stopped working, which is common. A proper plan adds an offsite copy and — critically — tested restores.
How do I know my backup would actually work?
By testing it, which most setups never do. Approved backups get a manual test restore and report each month, and we check that the recovery steps are documented, so you're not finding out for the first time during a real emergency.
Will backups protect us from ransomware?
Good backups are one of the strongest defences, because they let you recover without paying. The catch is that modern ransomware tries to destroy backups too — which is why we use immutable, ransomware-resistant copies that can't be altered or deleted after they're written.
How much data would we lose in a disaster?
That depends on how often backups run — and we set that to match how much data your business can afford to lose.
How long until we're back up and running?
That's the recovery time objective, and it's a planning decision, not a guess. We'll set a realistic target based on your systems and what a fast recovery is worth to you.
Real engagement
The backup had been protecting a share that no longer existed
green backups, nothing in them, for about three months — anonymised, with no invented figures.
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