Cloud Backup and Recovery

What it means

Snapshots, replicas, archives, service-native backups, infrastructure code, and cross-account copies each address different failure scenarios.

Why it matters

A backup is valuable only when it is protected from the same compromise, retained long enough, and restorable within business requirements.

Practical focus

• Define recovery point and recovery time targets
• Store protected copies across appropriate trust and failure boundaries
• Include identity, keys, configuration, and dependencies
• Test full restoration and business validation

Common mistakes

• Keeping backups under the same compromised administrator
• Confusing replication with backup
• Testing file recovery but not service recovery

Certification relevance

This subject appears in or supports the following certification bodies of knowledge:

Authoritative sources

• NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1 — Contingency Planning Guide
• CISA Cloud Security Technical Reference Architecture
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 — Security and Privacy Controls
• AWS Well-Architected Framework
• Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework
• Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework