Backup and Disaster Recovery · Serving WA · OR · ID · MT
Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
in Kent, Washington
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The day a Kent business needs its backups is almost always the worst day that business has had. The server is encrypted. The fire suppression triggered and ruined the rack. A disgruntled employee deleted three years of files on their way out. An accidental SQL update wiped a critical table at 4:47 on a Friday.
In every one of those scenarios, what saves the business is not heroics. It is whether the backups are real, whether they are recent, whether they are tested, and whether somebody knows how to restore them under stress.
We are inTech Consulting, headquartered at 25725 101st Ave SE in Kent. We design, run, and regularly test backup and disaster recovery (BDR) for businesses across King County (Kent, Tukwila, SeaTac, Auburn, Renton) and the Pacific Northwest. Our promise is simple: when you need to restore, you will be able to restore. Most of the businesses we replace cannot truthfully say that.
What "real" backup looks like in 2026
A lot of Kent businesses still have the backup setup they had in 2019. That is a problem because the threat model has changed. Ransomware now actively hunts and encrypts backups. Cloud providers have shared responsibility models that surprise people. Insider threats are real. The 3-2-1 rule is no longer enough.
Real backup in 2026 means at minimum:
- 3-2-1-1-0 rule: 3 copies of data, on 2 different media, with 1 off-site, 1 immutable (truly cannot be modified or deleted), and 0 errors verified by regular test restores
- Immutable storage so ransomware cannot encrypt your backups, even if it gets the domain admin
- Air-gapped or logically isolated copies of critical data
- Microsoft 365 backup as a separate concern (Microsoft does not back up your M365 data the way most people assume)
- Regular test restores, not just "the backup job completed successfully" emails
- Documented runbooks for the actual recovery process, with named owners and decision trees
- Recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTO and RPO) that match the business reality
If your current backup setup does not include all of these, you have a gap. The question is whether you find out from us today or from a ransomware actor on a Friday afternoon.
Why immutability matters
This deserves its own section because most Kent businesses we audit miss it.
Modern ransomware is not a 2017 attack. It is a 2026 attack. It targets the backup system first, encrypts it or deletes it, then encrypts production. If your backup runs to a Windows server with the same credentials as your production environment, you do not actually have a backup. You have an inventory of files that the attacker is about to take from you.
Immutable storage means data written cannot be modified or deleted for a defined retention period, even by an administrator. Object lock on S3, immutable blobs in Azure, write-once storage on properly configured BDR appliances. Ransomware cannot touch it because the underlying storage layer refuses to allow modifications.
Every Kent BDR engagement we run includes immutable storage. It is not optional in 2026.
Our BDR process
We follow a 7-step process for every Kent backup and disaster recovery engagement.
- 1. Risk assessment and business impact analysis. What systems matter, in what order, and how much downtime can the business actually absorb?
- 2. RTO and RPO definition. Recovery time objective (how fast must we be back) and recovery point objective (how much data can we lose). These drive the architecture.
- 3. Architectural design. Where backups go, how often, with what retention, and which copies are immutable.
- 4. Implementation. Software deployment, agent installation, initial seed backups, and immutable storage configuration.
- 5. Test restore. Real restoration of real data, not a checkbox. Most clients are surprised by what they learn.
- 6. Runbook authoring. Step-by-step recovery instructions for each scenario, with owners, escalation paths, and decision trees.
- 7. Quarterly DR drills. A real disaster recovery exercise every 90 days, run as a tabletop or a live restore, depending on the scope.
Pricing and what to expect
Backup and disaster recovery pricing depends mostly on data volume and recovery objectives. Typical Kent ranges:
- Microsoft 365 backup (per user, third-party with retention): $4 to $8 per user per month
- Server and endpoint backup (typical small business, 2 to 5 TB): $400 to $1,200 per month
- Full BDR with on-premise appliance plus cloud replication (for businesses with strict RTO requirements): $1,500 to $4,500 per month
- Disaster recovery as a service (instant failover to cloud-based recovery environment): $2,500 to $8,000 per month, depending on workload size
- One-time setup and implementation: $4,000 to $15,000, depending on complexity
- Quarterly DR drills: included in our managed IT services in Kent, or $2,500 each as a standalone
The biggest cost driver is RTO. A business that must be back online in 15 minutes pays significantly more than a business that can tolerate a 4-hour outage. We help you make that decision honestly during the business impact analysis.
What disaster recovery actually means in practice
The phrase gets used loosely. Real DR for a Kent business means:
- We can spin up a working environment for your critical applications in our cloud or a third-party recovery cloud
- Your team can keep working while the original site is unavailable
- PCI DSS for payment-handling
- Identity, file access, email, and core line-of-business apps all work in the recovery environment
- The recovery is rehearsed quarterly with the actual people who would run it under stress
What it does not mean:
- A list of backup tapes in a fireproof safe
- An untested cloud backup that nobody has ever restored from
- A recovery plan that only one person knows how to execute
Microsoft 365 backup is its own problem
Microsoft has a shared responsibility model for M365 data. They guarantee the platform is up. You are responsible for protecting your data against accidental deletion, malicious deletion, retention policy mistakes, ransomware that reaches your tenant, and departing employees who scorched-earth their mailboxes.
A native M365 retention policy is not a backup. We deploy a third-party M365 backup for every Kent client, covering Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams data, with 7-year retention for most clients and longer for compliance-bound businesses.
This becomes especially important for our CMMC compliance services in Kent clients because audit-grade retention of email and file data is required, and Microsoft's native tools do not meet the bar.
Ransomware response, when prevention fails
Even with great backups, the goal is to never need them. Our managed security services in Kent team runs prevention, detection, and containment. BDR is the last line, not the only line.
But when ransomware does land, the response sequence is:
- 1. Containment by the SOC, isolating affected endpoints, and killing C2 channels
- 2. Forensics to determine scope: what was accessed, what was exfiltrated, when the attacker first got in
- 3. Negotiation decision with you and (if applicable) your cyber insurance carrier
- 4. Recovery from immutable backups, rebuilt clean rather than restored to compromised systems
- 5. Post-incident hardening so the same vector cannot be used again
We have run this sequence end-to-end for Kent clients. The clients who had immutable backups were back online in hours. The clients who did not take weeks and lost real data.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should backups run?
Depends on your RPO. Most Kent clients run incremental backups every 15 to 60 minutes for critical systems and every 4 to 24 hours for lower-priority data. Microsoft 365 backups typically run 3 to 4 times per day.
How long should we retain backups?
Most Kent businesses we work with retain 30 to 90 days of daily backups, 12 to 24 months of monthly backups, and 7 years for compliance-bound retention (HIPAA, SOC 2, CMMC, financial). The specific answer comes from your compliance requirements.
Can you restore one file from three years ago?
Yes, if your retention policy supports it. We design retention policies based on your actual business needs and compliance requirements, not vendor defaults.
What is the difference between backup and disaster recovery?
Backup is the data. Disaster recovery is the ability to keep operating when the primary site is unavailable. Backups are necessary but not sufficient for DR. A real DR plan also includes failover infrastructure, runbooks, and rehearsed processes.
Do you back up our Azure or AWS workloads, too?
Yes. Cloud workloads need their own backup strategy. Azure and AWS provide infrastructure resilience, not data resilience. We deploy proper backup tools for cloud workloads as part of our cloud migration services in Kent.
What if our employee deletes files maliciously on their last day?
Common scenario. Our retention policies and immutable storage protect against this. We have helped Kent clients recover from intentional data destruction more than once. The backup was the difference between a small inconvenience and a serious problem.
Explore Our IT Services
Ready to find out if your backup is real?
If you cannot honestly answer "yes, we have run a successful test restore in the last 90 days," your backup is theoretical. We will spend 30 minutes with you on a call, walk through your current setup, and tell you what is solid and what needs work. No obligation, no sales script.
Call (206) 397-8070 or book a free BDR assessment at intechnw.com.
inTech Consulting, LLC. | 25725 101st Ave SE, Kent, WA 98030 | Certified Minority Business Enterprise (Washington OMWBE) | 90-day money-back guarantee on managed IT and managed security engagements
Book a Free CMMC Consultation Call (206) 397-8070