1. Office 365 backups to the CU*Answers cloud.

• These backups are performed to the CU*Answers cloud by a server in the CUA cloud and monitored by Network Services to ensure they are completed successfully at least once a day.
• Typical clients with this service back up their entire O365 environments (minus any Teams content, which is a limitation of the Microsoft API and Veeam software) to the CUA Cloud.
• Clients utilize rental licensing owned by CU*Answers, as a cloud provider of Veeam.
• Any restore operations are performed with billable time by contacting CU*Answers Network Services.
• Backups are encrypted in transit using TLS and at rest using AES-256.

2. On-Prem server backups with a Legacy DataBP server.

• These backups are performed on-prem by a local server to a local (independent from source) storage array.
• CU*Answers Network Services monitors the jobs and alerts you when jobs encounter issues. If jobs are not fully successful at least once a day (onsite and offsite), a ticket is generated, and the problem is worked.
• Servers selected for offsite backups are also transferred offsite to the CUA cloud for a legacy retention of at least 3 restore points (typically 3 days) or an immutable offsite retention of at least 7 days. Clients can move to immutable cloud storage as a one-time billable project by contacting the Help Desk.
• All clients utilize rental licensing owned by CU*Answers, as a cloud provider of Veeam. When possible, CU*Answers will leverage existing client Veeam licensing to reduce your costs.
• Any restore operations facilitated by CU*Answers Network Services are performed with billable time.
• Backups are encrypted in transit with TLS and at rest using AES-256.
• Clients should schedule regular restore tests to validate that the data backed up is usable. CU*Answers does not perform this work outside of Help Desk requests or Virtual Branch tests.
  • CU*Answers configures a corruption guard within Veeam to verify the data integrity of the backups, but this does not determine if the data is usable, only that it matches the data in production. The production data can be backed up in a corrupted state.
  • Servers can become corrupted and still be successfully backed up. Veeam can only verify a limited scope of problems with its own built-in tools.
  • Veeam offers malware scanning within its product. CU*Answers recommends an independent virus and malware scanner like Trend.
  • CU*Answers offers Virtual Branch as a service to assist clients in a yearly testing regimen of backups and DR processes.  
• In all situations, clients are responsible for verifying periodically that all appropriate servers are being backed up on the desired schedule to the desired locations (onsite, offsite, legacy, immutable, or otherwise). CU*Answers monitors the job states as a service and may be unaware of the importance of specific servers. The Help Desk can be contacted to help review and adjust jobs as needed.
• Backup reports can be requested at any time for the past 90 days in 30-day increments and are typically set up to be emailed on a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule upon contracting the service.

3. On-Prem server backups with an ESXi VM host DataBP server with immutable onsites.

• On-Prem storage is an immutable format. This ensures files are not deleted until their coded expiration time as set when written to disk.
• As this server runs on an ESXi VMHost, in an emergency, a limited selection of full backups can be spun up temporarily on the backup server itself (in the case of an on-prem primary server failure). NOTE: This capability is limited by the size and available resources of the backup server, which is often far smaller than your core production machines.  

4. Direct-to-Cloud backups.

• These backups are performed to the CU*Answers cloud and monitored by Network Services to ensure they are completed successfully (onsite and offsite) at least once a day.
• They include any servers (physical or VM) selected for the service and only include offsites (no onsite copy of the data).
• Clients utilize rental licensing from CU*Answers, as a cloud provider of Veeam.
• Any restore operations are performed with billable time.
• There is only one copy of backups.
• Modern direct-to-cloud backups are immutable. Clients can move to immutable direct-to-cloud storage as a one-time billable project by contacting the Help Desk.
• Backups are encrypted in transit by the Veeam Agent’s native transport protocol and at rest using AES-256.

5. CUA Cloud FM server backups.

• These are performed at CU*Answers locally and offsite to the CU*Answers DR site immutable storage for 21 days of on-prem backups and at least 7 days of offsite immutable backups.
• Clients utilize rental licensing from CU*Answers, as a cloud provider of Veeam.
• Any restore operations are performed with billable time.
• Clients should schedule regular restore tests to validate the data backed up is useable.
  • CU*Answers configures a corruption guard within Veeam to verify the data integrity of the backups, but this does not determine if the data is usable, only that it matches the data in production.
  • CU*Answers recommends testing backups regularly, as it does happen where servers become corrupted, and these corrupted servers are backed up. Veeam can only verify a limited scope of problems with its own built-in tools.
  • Veeam offers malware scanning within its product. CU*Answers recommends an independent virus and malware scanner like Trend.
  • CU*Answers offers Virtual Branch as a service to assist clients in a yearly testing regimen of backups and DR processes.
• Backups are encrypted in transit by TLS and at rest using AES-256.

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