World Backup Day 2025 Q&A with Mark Cash and Mark Butler

Happy World Backup Day! Today is a perfect reminder of the importance of protecting our data – whether it’s personal files, business documents, or vital projects. To celebrate, our Lead Cloud Database Engineer, Mark Cash, and Technology Platforms Manager, Mark Butler, are sharing their top tips on how they ensure their data is backed up safely. 

Mark Cash, Lead Cloud Database Engineer 

As a general rule, we follow the widely embraced 3-2-1 backup strategy for most of our systems. We maintain three copies of our data: this includes the original data and at least two copies. We use two different types of media for storage to enhance redundancy, and we keep at least one backup copy off-site to ensure data safety, separate from our primary data and on-site backups.  

On a more granular level, how we back up, how often, where we back up to, and how long we retain backups is dependent on the criticality of the system, business and legal compliance requirements, and the recovery point and time objectives. This ensures redundancy, resilience, and the ability to recover data even in the face of unexpected events or disasters such as hardware failures, software bugs, human error, and malicious attacks. 

Mark Butler, Technology Platforms Manager 

Backing up data safely means ensuring it’s protected, recoverable, and resilient to failure. We use a range of backup methods, including offsite storage, automation to reduce human error, and regular testing to confirm recoverability. Encryption and access controls help keep backups secure; while maintaining multiple copies ensures we can restore data when needed. A backup is only as good as its ability to restore – so having a solid strategy in place is key!