When you lose information from a business, you don’t just lose the documents; you also lose time to operate, miss deadlines, have to address potential legal ramifications (compliance), and have customers or clients that know something is amiss. We treat your recovery needs as a business need: we sign non-disclosure agreements before we start work with you; we prioritise your business needs when the clock is ticking; our documentation is acceptable to auditors, and our invoicing will be recognised by your financial management team.
All data recoveries including RAID, NAS, servers, VMs and databases are done in-house, with proper NDAs and billing for all commercial jobs.
Our engineering process is the same no matter what job we do. We image first, get you a fixed price quote and with most of our jobs, you don’t pay unless we restore your data. However the “wrapper” that goes around it will be different. For example, confidentiality is something we document through a legal non-disclosure agreement prior to you shipping us your media. When we handle your media, it remains in our control at all times throughout the entire process (which is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, ZC173784). Updates regarding progress or completion of your job will go directly to one person who has been designated by you as the point of contact. Priority is honestly priced, and when we say priority, we mean it. If there is an emergency situation where time is critical, the way in which we manage your intake, diagnostic processes and the number of hours spent on the bench while working on your case will be presented as a quote line item, so you see exactly what priority costs. Documentation varies depending on who the intended audience for documentation is going to be. For example: recovery reports will typically go to your insurance company; verification statements usually go to compliance; certificates of secure destruction will typically be issued for retired media. Billing practices also vary depending on whether it is a “standard terms” type of contract or not. In either eventuality, we provide full VAT invoices and honour your purchase order reference, and for standard-terms work we only bill you once we have successfully restored your data.
The exact same types of data loss are found in each sector: the one server that went down with its backup file having gone stale; arrays damaged through attempts to rebuild them with good intentions; ransomware spread across a share and/or NAS; ex-employees who create forensic issues; databases identified as “suspect” around month’s end; and an array of laptops owned by users who never backed up their files since they always worked off the laptop itself. Law firms, practices, manufacturers, agencies, and schools located throughout Yorkshire have walked through the same office door (drop-off or insured courier) and received the same no-cost diagnostic before beginning each case.
Every business has a written (paper) disaster-recovery strategy. But it does not matter how good your disaster recovery plan is if you have never put it into practice. You may find that your RAID will not rebuild, your servers will not boot, or the backup you created was also infected by a ransomware attack. You could lose an entire room of servers due to a fire or flood; if your plan cannot restore your data, recovering it from the failed hardware is the disaster recovery that actually counts. That is why we do all of our disaster recoveries in-house using our own equipment, prioritise them because we know that when you are down, time is money, and then document them so they can be signed off on by anyone who requires it.
Yes: quote first, PO number referenced on the invoice (with correct VAT), and only when successful do you pay for regular recovery jobs, where you only pay us if we have recovered your data. If an agreed upon ‘attempt’ fee applies, then this will be stated in writing prior to you committing to the job, as with all work.
A full handling summary document is provided, i.e., details of how the service was provided (including ICO registration, that we only use in-house engineers, the method used for imaging, how data is stored while we’re working on your case, and the return or certified destruction of your media once we’ve completed our services). In addition, for customers from regulated industries, we provide documentation in the language requested by your organisation’s framework at the time of our engagement.
Happily, we work with them: many managed service providers and internal IT staff send us their hardware; after all, they run your network, and we get you back your files, verified.