Why Backups Alone Don't Guarantee Recovery for Small Software Teams

Many small teams assume that enabling backups means they are prepared for disaster, but this says nothing about data age, restore duration, or whether a restore has ever been tested. The article argues that two business-defined targets, a recovery point objective for acceptable data loss and a recovery time objective for acceptable downtime, should drive every technical decision. It notes that recovery time includes detection, decision-making, provisioning, verification and traffic switching, not just the restore itself. Common failures are backups that were silently broken, incomplete, undecryptable, or stored in the same environment they protect. The piece recommends restoring backups at least quarterly, timing the process, and remembering overlooked assets such as uploaded files, secrets, DNS and certificates.