Designing backup coverage: backup types, consistency, copies and recovery order

Skills you'll practise

• Explain full, differential and incremental backups and count the backup sets a restore needs
• Explain how VSS requesters, writers and providers produce consistent backups of running applications
• Build a backup scope from the system inventory, including configurations, SaaS data and rebuild images
• Evaluate a copy plan against the offline, recovery, 3-2-1 and regular rules
• Order a recovery runbook by dependencies and business priority

Course outline

1. 1.Designing backups you can restoreVideo · 2 min
2. 2.Backup types and restore chainsLesson · 16 min
3. 3.Consistency and scopeLesson · 16 min
4. 4.Resilient copies and recovery orderLesson · 17 min
5. 5.Designing backup coverage: backup types, consistency, copies and recovery order: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 17 questions
6. 6.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out

Sources it draws on

The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.

• Microsoft Learn: Azure Backup architecture and components (full, differential and incremental backup types)
• Microsoft Learn: Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)
• NCSC (UK): Offline backups in an online world (offline, recovery, 3-2-1 and regular rules)
• CISA and partners: #StopRansomware Guide (backups: offline, encrypted, tested; golden images)
• NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1: Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems