Ask a school whether its data is backed up and the answer will probably be, “yes, of course.”
Great! But there’s another question that matters just as much – could you actually get everything back?
Because having a backup and being able to recover successfully from one aren’t quite the same thing.
And the worst time to discover the difference is when something has already gone wrong.
Backups are only half the story
Backups tend to sit quietly in the background.
When they’re working properly, nobody needs to think about them very often. Files are copied, systems report that everything is successful and everyone gets on with the school day.
But school backup and recovery isn’t simply about whether data is being copied somewhere.
The real test is what happens next.
Imagine an important file disappears. A server fails. Someone accidentally deletes something they shouldn’t. Or the school suffers a cyber incident.
What happens tomorrow morning?
Can the information be restored?
Who knows how to restore it?
And perhaps most importantly, how long will it take?
“It says successful” isn’t the same as testing it
A backup system showing a reassuring green tick is certainly better than a red warning.
But that shouldn’t be the only check.
Think of a backup a little like a spare key.
Knowing you’ve got one somewhere is useful.
Knowing where it is and checking that it actually opens the door is considerably more useful when you’re standing outside in the rain.
The same principle applies to school backup and recovery.
Testing a restore helps confirm that the information you think is protected can actually be recovered when you need it.
Do you know what is being backed up?
This is another surprisingly useful question.
Schools now use a mixture of technology.
There may be local servers, shared files, laptops, cloud storage, management systems and Microsoft 365.
Don’t simply assume that because something is backed up, everything is.
For example, schools increasingly keep important information within cloud services. It is worth understanding exactly what protection is included with those services and whether additional backup arrangements are in place where needed.
You don’t need to know the technical details.
Your IT provider should be able to explain what is protected, where it is protected and what would happen if you needed something restored in language that makes sense.
How quickly could your school recover?
This is where backup turns into recovery.
Suppose all your important information is safely backed up.
Brilliant.
But what if getting everything operational again takes several days?
Teachers may be unable to access resources. Office staff could lose access to important files. Systems the school relies upon every day could be unavailable.
So another useful question is: “If this system failed today, how long would it realistically take us to get working again?”
Different systems may need different answers.
Something used occasionally might be able to wait.
A system relied upon throughout every school day probably can’t.
Good school backup and recovery planning therefore considers both what needs protecting and how quickly it needs to be available again.
Five questions to ask about your school’s backups
You don’t need to become a backup expert.
Instead, ask whoever manages your school’s IT these five questions:
- What exactly are we backing up?
- How often are our backups checked?
- When did we last successfully restore something from a backup?
- How long would it take to recover our important systems after a serious failure?
- Who is responsible for managing the recovery if something happens?
You should be able to get straightforward answers.
If you can’t, that’s something worth looking into.
What about Microsoft 365?
This deserves particular attention because Microsoft 365 has become such a normal part of everyday school life.
Email, documents, Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint can contain a considerable amount of important school information.
Cloud services provide resilience and various retention and recovery capabilities, but that doesn’t automatically mean every school’s requirements are covered in every scenario.
That’s why your school backup and recovery review should include cloud data rather than concentrating solely on traditional servers.
Ask what happens if a member of staff accidentally deletes something important, an account is compromised, or information needs to be recovered from an earlier point in time.
Again, you don’t need the technical explanation.
You just need to know what would happen.
Backups shouldn’t be something you discover during an emergency
Nobody wants to spend their day thinking about backups.
And that’s fine.
A good backup system should quietly do its job in the background.
But someone should be checking it, recovery should occasionally be tested and the school should understand what would happen if something important disappeared.
That turns backup from something the school hopes is working into something it knows it can rely on.
One question to ask this week
If you do nothing else after reading this, ask your IT provider: “If we lost something important tomorrow, how quickly could we get it back – and when did we last test that?”
If there’s a clear answer, great.
If there isn’t, it’s worth finding out.
Because the important thing isn’t simply knowing your school has a backup.
It’s knowing you can get your school back up and running when it matters.
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