Most organizations have some form of backup running. Far fewer can say with confidence it would actually restore their data if needed today.
Know what's actually being backed up
Email, files, and databases each need to be backed up — and it's common for one of the three to be missed entirely, especially cloud-based email and Teams data, which isn't always covered by traditional backup tools.
The 3-2-1 rule, in plain terms
Three copies of your data, on two different types of storage, with one copy stored somewhere physically separate. Cloud backup services can satisfy this without much manual effort.
Test a restore, not just the backup job
A backup job completing successfully tells you data was copied — not that it can be recovered. Once or twice a year, actually restore a file or folder to confirm the process works end to end.
Know your recovery time
If a server failed today, how long would it take to be operational again? "We have backups" and "we can be running again within four hours" are very different levels of preparedness.
Ransomware changes the calculus
Backups that are constantly connected to your network can be encrypted along with everything else in a ransomware incident. Immutable or offline backup copies are what actually guarantee recovery.
If you can't answer "when did we last test a restore," that's the first gap worth closing.