064 - Backup and Recovery in 2026: Why Boring Backups Win

Your backups should be boring: hardware you know, a copy that lives somewhere else, at least one copy nobody can change, and a restore test that proves the whole thing works. Andy Syrewicze and Eric Siron go back to basics on backup and recovery for 2026. They build the inventory, including the switch configs and firewall policies nobody thinks to protect, get honest RPO and RTO answers by asking what an hour of downtime costs, and explain why a Hyper-V checkpoint is not a backup. Then immutability, tape's write-protect tab, air gaps that are not air gaps, and the monthly restore test. Up front: a stolen ConnectWise Cloud Backup credential that signed in to at least 173 Microsoft 365 tenants, and whether Ukraine's strikes on Yandex data centers really silenced Russian bots. Chapters: 00:00:00 - Cold Open: The Backup Episode We Never Did 00:01:05 - Welcome and Show Plugs 00:04:04 - News React: Ukraine's Strikes and the Russian Bot Drop 00:06:47 - The Dead Internet Theory 00:08:46 - When Data Centers Become Military Targets 00:09:40 - News React: Stolen ConnectWise Credential Hits M365 Tenants 00:12:37 - Why a Compromised App Is Harder to Lock Out 00:13:50 - Nerd Hour: Tailscale Upgrades and a Look at NetBird 00:15:35 - Eric's Hugo Migration and GDPR-Friendly Analytics 00:16:28 - Umami vs Matomo 00:18:37 - On-Premise vs On-Premises 00:19:57 - Main Topic: Start With What You're Protecting 00:22:46 - The Second Tier: Switch Configs and Firewall Policies 00:25:43 - Are Your Desktops Actually Backed Up? 00:26:46 - Folder Redirection and the Root of C: 00:28:03 - The Window Hidden Under the Taskbar 00:28:53 - Back Up Your Power Users' Workstations 00:30:15 - RPO and RTO Explained 00:32:23 - Ask What an Hour of Downtime Costs 00:34:44 - Zero Downtime Means High Availability 00:36:40 - HA Workloads Still Need Backups 00:37:16 - Design Your Backups to Be Boring 00:40:03 - Why Won't Companies Pay for Backup? 00:41:17 - Hyper-V Checkpoints Are Not Backups 00:42:17 - Mattresses, Tires, and Backup Pricing 00:43:16 - Business Continuity Goes Beyond Backup 00:44:42 - Two Backup Copies, One Off-Site 00:45:43 - Ransomware Goes After Your Backups First 00:46:17 - Immutable Backups in 2026 00:48:06 - Is Anything Truly Immutable? 00:49:32 - Tape and the Write-Protect Tab 00:50:48 - How Long Does Tape Last? 00:51:25 - The Drive Dies Before the Tape Does 00:53:05 - USB Drives, Cold Sites, and Short Sync Windows 00:54:53 - Security vs Convenience and the Air Gap Label 00:56:00 - Run a Recovery Test, and Run It Often 00:57:37 - Why Total Data Loss Ends Businesses 00:59:15 - Business Continuity Follow-Up and Wrap Up 01:00:00 - Outro: Send Us Your Horror Stories Resources / Show Notes: - The Hacker News - Compromised ConnectWise credential used on 173 M365 tenants: https://thehackernews.com/2026/10/hackers-use-compromised-connectwise.html - Euronews - Did Ukraine's strikes on Yandex data centres silence Russian bots?: https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/12/did-ukrainian-strikes-on-yandex-data-centres-cause-russian-bot-activity-to-plummet - CISA - #StopRansomware Guide: https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/stopransomware-guide - Umami, privacy-focused web analytics: https://umami.is/ - Matomo, open source web analytics: https://matomo.org/ - NetBird, open source zero trust networking: https://netbird.io/ - Tailscale: https://tailscale.com/ - SysAdmin Weekly: https://www.sysadminweekly.com - SysAdmin Weekly Newsletter: https://newsletter.sysadminweekly.com - AndyOnTech: https://www.andyontech.com - Project Runspace: https://www.projectrunspace.org - GitHub Discussions: https://github.com/ProjectRunspace/sysadmin-weekly/discussions