Backup and Disaster Recovery in Central Texas
Engineer Austin provides server, Microsoft 365 and offsite backup for Central Texas organizations, verified on a schedule, with a written restore procedure your staff have tested live. Our hosted offsite copy sits in the Austin area on storage whose recent versions cannot be altered or deleted, even by an administrator.
Three layers, each one tested
- Server backup with Veeam. Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Agent, with backup-account permissions designed against the vendor's documentation rather than granted wholesale.
- A restore point verified before any risky change to a server, domain controller or firewall. If the change goes wrong, the way back already exists.
- Microsoft 365 backup. Native protection explained for what it is, plus an independent daily backup of mail, OneDrive and SharePoint with long retention.
- Firm-hosted offsite backup. Encrypted replication from your NAS to a Synology system we operate in the Austin area, with daily, weekly and monthly versions. Capacity steps up only with notice to you, and never shrinks without your request.
- Immutable snapshots, as part of our hosted offsite backup service. Recent versions locked so no one, including an administrator account, can delete or alter them, which is what defeats ransomware that reaches the backup.
- Quarterly test restore with a short written result, or monthly where a contract requires it. Each month we also confirm that jobs ran, retention is being kept and the newest copy is locked; failures alert us and we respond.
- Written one-page restore procedures in plain language, tested live with your staff at onboarding and re-verified at the annual review.
- Business continuity and disaster recovery, in one short plan. Disaster recovery brings systems back; business continuity keeps you working while they come back. The plan says what stops, what keeps running by other means, who decides and what returns first. For servers you cannot be without, a replicated standby copy at a second location or in the cloud, scoped server by server and tested on a schedule.
Assess, design, seed, verify
Assess
We find out what is actually backed up today, where the copies live, how far back they go and when a restore was last tried. Most offices have a local copy and nothing else. The gaps go into a findings register you keep.
Design and quote
A backup design covers three layers: local, Microsoft 365 and offsite. Our hosted offsite option is quoted as two separable lines, storage location and managed service, so you can compare our Austin-area location against a cloud provider on the same terms.
Build and seed
Agents and replication are deployed, the first full copy is seeded, and the first test restore is run with you watching. The restore procedure is written from what actually happened, not from a template.
Verify and report
Monthly job and retention checks, a quarterly test restore with a written result, and a written re-verification of the restore procedure at the annual infrastructure assessment. Verification is part of the Managed Service Program wherever we deployed the tooling.
The standard has changed, and will again. Immutable snapshots are now part of our standard design because ransomware increasingly reaches the backups before it encrypts the servers; a copy an administrator can delete is no longer enough. Each year we re-price and re-evaluate the destinations we offer, our hosted system against Synology C2 and Backblaze B2, and tell you at the quarterly review if the comparison has changed.
How AI speeds this up for you
AI assistants in our approval-gated tooling read the backup job logs and the output of each test restore, flag jobs that completed but protected less than they should have, and draft the quarterly written result and the restore procedure from the live test. A person verifies every restore and signs the result; the tooling never holds credentials to your backup systems. How we use AI.
Offsite backup, hosted by us or by the cloud
A complete copy of your data living outside your building is the piece most organizations skip until the day they need it. Our hosted service replicates from your NAS to a Synology system in the Austin area over an encrypted connection, keeps daily, weekly and monthly versions, and locks recent snapshots against deletion. It survives hardware failure, fire or ransomware at your site.
You are allocated the space you use plus room to grow, not the size of our hardware, and capacity grows in quoted steps with no usage, transfer or retrieval fees. Because the copy is in the Austin area, a large restore can be brought to you on a drive rather than waiting on a download.
The copy sits on equipment we own and operate in Central Texas, so its location, its price and who can touch it do not change because a cloud vendor changed theirs.
We describe it as what it is: one complete offsite copy in one location, not a multi-datacenter service. If a cloud destination suits you better, we quote Synology C2 or Backblaze B2 on the same terms and say plainly when the cheaper option is sound. A cloud copy restores over your internet connection only; it cannot come to you on a drive.
What the written result says each quarter. Which files were restored, from which snapshot, how long it took, and whether anything needs attention. The first hour of any real restore is included.
Written proof that restores work
- A backup design document naming each layer, what it protects, how often it runs and how long it keeps.
- A one-page restore procedure in plain language, tested live with your staff at onboarding and re-verified in writing each year.
- Quarterly test-restore results and monthly job and retention confirmations, in writing.
- A service letter stating what runs, what we do each month and how growth is handled.
- Restore-point confirmation recorded before every risky change.
- A short business-continuity and disaster-recovery plan: what stops, what keeps running by other means, who decides, who calls whom and what comes back first.
Tested, not assumed
A backup that has never been restored is an assumption, not a control. We design backup on engineering principles under a licensed engineering firm: the design criteria are your recovery time, recovery point and records-retention schedule, written down before any software is chosen. Test restores are scheduled, each result is kept as a dated record, and when something cannot be measured the report says so rather than guessing. Engineer Austin is Texas Registered Engineering Firm F‑15739; our team does the work to house standards set by our licensed Professional Engineer.
Platforms and who this is for
Platforms we build on: Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Agent, Microsoft 365 Backup, Synology with Btrfs snapshot replication, Synology C2 and Backblaze B2 as cloud alternatives.
Who this is for: cities, counties and special districts with records-retention obligations; water and wastewater operators whose plant records live on one server; medical practices and home-health agencies; professional offices and nonprofits; and any organization whose only backup is in the same room as the server. Backup is designed alongside our servers and virtualization and Microsoft 365 services.
Backup and recovery, answered plainly
Does Microsoft already back up our Microsoft 365 data?
Partly. Microsoft keeps recycle-bin stages, version history and Files Restore, which recover most accidental deletions within a limited window. It does not meet a multi-year retention requirement or recover an account that was compromised and emptied months ago. An independent daily backup with long retention closes that gap, and we compare Microsoft 365 Backup with third-party services on equal terms.
What does immutable mean for us?
Recent backup versions are locked for a set window so they cannot be deleted or changed by anyone, including an administrator account or ransomware running with administrator rights. If an attacker encrypts your server and then reaches the backup, the locked snapshots are still intact and can be restored. Immutability is part of our hosted offsite backup service.
How quickly can we get our data back after a fire or ransomware?
Individual files and folders come back over the network in minutes; a full restore depends on how much data there is. For a full restore from our Austin-area copy, we can bring the data to you on a drive rather than wait on a download, usually the faster path for a large data set. The first hour of any restore is included.
Is file sync the same as backup?
No. A sync tool such as OneDrive or a NAS mirror copies deletions and encrypted files to the other side within minutes, so a mistake or a ransomware attack spreads to every copy. A backup keeps versions you can go back to, and the offsite copy we host keeps locked ones. Sync is useful for sharing files; it is not a backup.
How do we know the backups actually work?
Because we restore from them on a schedule. Every quarter we restore real files from the offsite copy and send you a short written result. Where a contract calls for monthly test restores, we run them monthly. Every month we confirm jobs ran, retention was kept and the newest copy is locked. Before any risky server change we confirm a usable restore point exists. At onboarding your staff walk through the restore procedure live with us, and each year we re-verify it in writing.
Is backup included in the Managed Service Program?
Partly. Monitoring, verification and test restores are included wherever we deployed the backup tooling. Backup software licenses and offsite storage are separate lines on the same monthly invoice, so there is one vendor to call. Designing and implementing a full disaster-recovery capability is scoped and quoted as its own project.
Can you keep a standby copy of our servers ready to run?
Yes. For critical servers we can maintain a replicated standby copy at a second location or in the cloud, on our own infrastructure or on partner platforms we manage, so the system can be brought up there while your site is repaired. We scope it server by server, because not every machine warrants a standby, and we test the failover on a schedule and record the result. It is quoted as its own project and added only with your written approval.
Start with a written assessment.
Tell us what you have and what is not working. Someone from our team, not a salesperson, replies within one business day by email or phone, and brings in our engineer when your request needs one. The assessment report is yours to keep whether or not you buy anything.