Managed IT
WHEN SOMETHING FAILS, YOU GET BACK TO WORK.
Every business will lose data eventually — a failed drive, a ransomware attack, a deleted folder, a fire, a mistake. The question is whether that becomes an afternoon of inconvenience or a threat to the business itself. We design and manage backup and disaster recovery for companies across Rapid City and the Black Hills so a failure is recoverable, not catastrophic.
Backup and disaster recovery are two different things. Backup is having copies of your data. Disaster recovery is a plan for getting your business running again after something goes wrong — how fast, from where, and in what order. Most small businesses have some kind of backup and no plan, which means they find out the hard way that the backup was incomplete, out of date, or impossible to restore under pressure.
We handle both: reliable, monitored backups of the data and systems that matter, and a recovery plan that has actually been tested — so restoring from backup is a real option and not a hope.
Backups You Can Actually Restore
A backup is only worth something if it restores. We set up backups of your servers, critical computers, and data, following the principle of keeping multiple copies in more than one place — including off-site — so a single event cannot take out both your data and your backup of it. Then we monitor those backups every day and confirm they completed, because a backup that silently failed three weeks ago is worse than no backup, since you were counting on it.
We also test restores. Knowing the backup ran is not the same as knowing you can get the data back — and the middle of an emergency is the wrong time to discover the difference.
Microsoft 365 Backup
Here is what most businesses do not realize: Microsoft does not back up your data for you. Microsoft keeps the service running, but if an employee deletes emails or files — or ransomware encrypts them, or a departing employee wipes a mailbox — Microsoft retention is limited and then it is gone. Your Microsoft 365 email, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams data need their own backup.
We add third-party backup for Microsoft 365 that keeps recoverable copies of your email and files well beyond Microsoft built-in retention, so a deletion or an attack does not mean permanent loss.
Server & On-Site Backup
For businesses that run their own servers — line-of-business applications, files, databases — we back those up completely, so an entire server can be rebuilt or restored rather than reconstructed from scratch. Where uptime matters, we can set up systems that get you running again in hours instead of days, from a local copy for speed and an off-site copy for safety.
Disaster Recovery Planning
A disaster recovery plan answers the questions you do not want to be improvising during an actual disaster: What has to come back first? How long can we be down? Where do people work if the office is unusable? Who does what? We build a plan matched to your business — how much downtime you can tolerate and how much data you can afford to lose — and we write it down so it does not live only in one person’s head.
The plan is only real if it has been tested, so we test it. Ransomware, hardware failure, and simple human error are the common cases, and a tested plan turns each of them from a crisis into a procedure.
Backup Monitoring as Part of Managed IT
For our managed IT clients, backup monitoring is built in — we watch every backup daily as part of keeping your systems healthy, so you are never trusting a backup on faith. If a backup fails, we know that morning and fix it, long before you need to restore from it.
HOW WE APPROACH THIS
We start with what would actually hurt to lose — your files, your email, your line-of-business systems — and how long you could stand to be without them. That tells us what needs backing up, how often, and how fast it has to come back. We set up backups following the multiple-copies, off-site principle, monitor them daily, and test that they restore. Then we write a recovery plan matched to your business so a bad day stays a bad day instead of becoming a lost business.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Backup & Disaster Recovery — FAQ
Does Microsoft 365 back up my email and files?
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No — this catches a lot of businesses off guard. Microsoft keeps the service running, but if data is deleted or encrypted by ransomware, Microsoft retention is limited and then it is gone. Your Microsoft 365 email and files need their own backup, which we provide.
What is the difference between backup and disaster recovery?
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Backup is having copies of your data. Disaster recovery is the plan for getting your business running again after something goes wrong — what comes back first, how fast, and from where. You need both; most businesses have only partial backup and no plan.
How do I know my backups actually work?
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Because someone checks. We monitor your backups every day to confirm they completed, and we test restores — so you find out the backup works before an emergency, not during one. An unmonitored backup is one you are trusting on faith.
How fast can we recover after a failure?
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It depends on what you set up. With a local copy for speed and an off-site copy for safety, critical systems can be back in hours rather than days. We design the recovery speed around how much downtime your business can actually tolerate.
What about ransomware?
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Ransomware is exactly what off-site, monitored backups are for. If your systems are encrypted, a clean backup that the ransomware could not reach is what lets you restore instead of pay. We keep backups isolated so an attack cannot take out your data and your recovery at the same time.
SERVICE AREA
Western South Dakota & the Black Hills
We protect businesses across Rapid City, Box Elder, Spearfish, Sturgis, and the Black Hills, plus Gillette, Wyoming. Backup and recovery are managed remotely and monitored daily, with local, on-site help whenever hardware is involved.
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