DR-06 · EXPERIENCE

Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Continuity, Tested Before You Need It

I design backup and disaster recovery the way you actually use it, by restoring. I build Rubrik so your data is protected and recoverable, then I prove it with real restore drills measured against RTO and RPO targets. When an outage hits, you already know how long recovery takes because we tested it.

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01 · What I do

The actual work

Design and deploy Rubrik backup architecture for VMs, file shares, databases, and physical hosts, with policies mapped to how critical each workload really is.
Set RTO and RPO targets per system, then build the protection schedule to meet them instead of guessing.
Run real restore drills, not checkbox tests: full VM recoveries, file-level restores, and failover walkthroughs you can watch.
Write the disaster recovery plan as a documented, ordered procedure with clear owners, sequence, and dependencies.
Validate recovery time against the agreed gates, then tune backup windows, replication, and retention until the numbers hold.
Test immutability and ransomware recovery so a bad day does not become a total loss.
Document the environment so your team can recover without me on the phone.

02 · What you get

What you are left with

A backup setup that is proven to restore, with documented recovery times you can put in front of leadership or an auditor.
Clear RTO and RPO numbers per system, agreed up front and met in testing.
A written disaster recovery plan your team can follow without calling me.
Confidence that ransomware or hardware failure means a recovery, not a rebuild from scratch.

03 · Tools and knowledge

What I work with here

Rubrik backup and recovery
Restore drills and failover testing
RTO and RPO target setting
Immutable backups and ransomware recovery
Replication and offsite or cloud retention
Disaster recovery planning and documentation

04 · How I approach it

Planned, scoped, and owned

It starts with a 30-minute scoping call and a same-day written fit assessment, so we both know what is in scope and what good looks like. Before I touch anything in production, I write a documented change plan with a rollback that spells out how protection schedules, retention, and replication will change. Then I make the changes inside a defined window, validate recovery against the agreed gates with real restore drills, and own the rollback if a gate fails. You get a tested result, not a hopeful one.

Credentials and standardsI hold CompTIA Security+ and build to published standards, including the NIST 800-53 contingency planning controls that backup and recovery answer to, with DoD STIG hardening on the systems involved. When the threat is ransomware, I use MITRE ATT&CK to make sure recovery accounts for how attackers reach backups, not just the primary data.

05 · Questions

Good questions, straight answers

Do you only work with Rubrik?

Rubrik is what I know deepest, so that is where I add the most value. The method, setting real RTO and RPO targets and proving them with restore drills, applies to any platform, and I will tell you honestly if your environment fits a different tool better.

What is a restore drill, and why does it matter?

It is an actual recovery. I bring a system back from backup and time it, instead of trusting that the backup job reported success. A backup you have never restored is a guess. A restore drill turns it into a known recovery time.

Can you set this up without disrupting production?

Yes. Backup and DR changes go in inside a defined window against a documented change plan with a rollback. Restore drills run against recovered copies, not your live systems, so testing recovery does not put production at risk.

06 · Related experience

Adjacent work I do

Need this handled?

Tell me what you are trying to move and where it is stuck. A few sentences is plenty to start, and it goes straight to my inbox.

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