Truth is most of the time you won’t use your backup – you won’t need it. That’s fine. The problem is when you do need the backup you need it bad, and you need it somewhat desperately. In fact there are two types of companies, those who have experienced data loss and those that will. The golden 3-2-1 backup strategy helps you avoid such pitfall.
First have at least three copies of your datacenter. By having multiple copies you decrease the chance of data loss exponentially. The first copy is your primary / production copy, the one that your team works with daily and make changes to. The second copy is a backup of your data that should be readily available for bulk or file-level restore should that become necessary, and third is backup copy which should be stored off-site preferably in the cloud.
Store backups on two different types of storage media. Be sure to backup to physically separate geographical locations should a natural disaster occur. Do that and you’ll always be able to restore in full. Even if one of your drives fail and aliens abduct the other. This reduces or even eliminates the chance of you losing all copies of your data.
To prepare for any data loss scenario, first be sure to validate your data recovery strategy. Data is really easy to backup, but strangely enough not so easy to restore especially when your business runs on it. Simply having a backup is only half the battle. Don’t wait until you need data from a backup to test your recovery procedure.
It’s worthwhile to mention the fact that Veeam restore to azure essentials provide you with the ability to spin up a test VM from your backup. This can be done manually through the instant VM recovery wizard with standard edition or in an automated fashion