A Glossary of Key Terms in Data Backup & Recovery Terminology for HR & Recruiting Professionals
In today’s fast-paced HR and recruiting landscape, data is paramount. From sensitive candidate profiles in your CRM to critical employee records, the integrity and availability of your information directly impact your ability to hire, onboard, and retain top talent. Understanding data backup and recovery terminology isn’t just for IT; it’s essential for HR leaders and recruiting professionals to ensure business continuity, mitigate risks, and maintain compliance. This glossary demystifies key terms, empowering you to make informed decisions about protecting your most valuable asset: your data.
Data Backup
Data backup refers to the process of creating copies of data and storing them in a secure, separate location. The primary purpose is to ensure that if original data is lost, corrupted, or becomes inaccessible due to hardware failure, cyberattack, or human error, a recent copy can be restored. For HR and recruiting professionals, robust data backup strategies are crucial for safeguarding sensitive employee information, applicant tracking system (ATS) data, and CRM records like those in Keap. Regular backups prevent significant operational disruptions and protect your organization from compliance penalties and reputational damage resulting from data loss. It’s a foundational element of any comprehensive data protection strategy.
Data Recovery
Data recovery is the process of retrieving lost, corrupted, or deleted information from a backup. When a system experiences an outage, a database becomes inaccessible, or critical files are accidentally erased, data recovery procedures are activated to restore operations to a previous, functional state. For an HR department, this might mean restoring an entire Keap CRM database to recover all candidate interactions, or retrieving specific payroll files after a system crash. The speed and success of data recovery directly impact an organization’s ability to resume normal operations, minimize downtime, and prevent productivity losses in recruiting and HR functions. Effective recovery hinges on well-planned backups and tested recovery protocols.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) defines the maximum acceptable amount of data an organization can afford to lose after an incident. It is measured in time, representing how far back in time data might need to be recovered from a backup. For instance, an RPO of 4 hours means that in the event of a disaster, you’re prepared to lose up to 4 hours of data. For HR and recruiting teams, defining RPO for systems like Keap CRM is critical. A very low RPO (e.g., 1 hour) for active applicant data ensures minimal loss of new candidate submissions or interview notes, while a higher RPO might be acceptable for less frequently updated archival employee data. It directly influences backup frequency.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) specifies the maximum allowable downtime for an application, system, or process after a disaster or failure. Unlike RPO, which focuses on data loss, RTO focuses on the time it takes to restore business operations to an acceptable level. For a busy recruiting firm, a low RTO for their ATS or Keap CRM is paramount; every hour of downtime translates to lost opportunities for candidate engagement and potential hiring delays. HR leaders must work with IT to establish realistic RTOs for critical systems, understanding that a shorter RTO typically requires more sophisticated (and often more expensive) recovery solutions and immediate failover capabilities.
Disaster Recovery (DR)
Disaster Recovery (DR) is a comprehensive plan and set of procedures an organization implements to resume critical IT operations after a catastrophic event, such as a natural disaster, cyberattack, or major system failure. A robust DR strategy ensures that vital systems, data, and infrastructure can be quickly restored or transitioned to an alternate environment, minimizing downtime and data loss. For HR and recruiting, DR planning means safeguarding access to candidate pipelines, employee databases, payroll systems, and communications tools. An effective DR plan is essential for maintaining business continuity, protecting sensitive PII, and ensuring that HR can continue to support the workforce even in extreme circumstances, often leveraging cloud-based solutions.
Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a holistic strategy designed to maintain essential business functions during and after a disaster, ensuring the organization can continue to operate with minimal disruption. While Disaster Recovery (DR) specifically addresses the recovery of IT systems, BCP encompasses a broader scope, including operational, logistical, and human resource considerations. For HR and recruiting professionals, a BCP outlines how the department will continue to function—e.g., managing payroll, communicating with employees, or conducting interviews—even if physical offices are inaccessible or primary systems are down. It covers everything from alternate work locations to emergency communication protocols and ensures all facets of the business are prepared for unforeseen events.
Cloud Backup
Cloud backup involves storing copies of data on remote servers managed by a third-party provider, accessed over the internet. Instead of backing up to local storage devices, organizations transmit their data to a cloud service. This method offers several advantages for HR and recruiting teams, including scalability, automatic updates, and enhanced accessibility from anywhere with an internet connection, which is crucial for remote or hybrid workforces. It also offloads the responsibility of managing backup infrastructure, potentially reducing IT overhead. Cloud backup solutions, when properly configured and secured, provide a resilient and flexible option for safeguarding sensitive HR data and Keap CRM information against local failures or disasters.
On-Premise Backup
On-premise backup refers to the practice of storing backup copies of data within an organization’s own physical facilities, typically on local servers, tape drives, or network-attached storage (NAS) devices. This method provides organizations with direct physical control over their backup data and infrastructure. For HR and recruiting departments, on-premise backups might be chosen due to strict regulatory compliance requirements, specific security policies, or a desire to avoid reliance on external internet connections for recovery. While offering direct control, it requires significant internal resources for management, maintenance, and offsite storage of backup copies to protect against site-specific disasters, making it less flexible than cloud options.
Data Integrity
Data integrity refers to the overall accuracy, completeness, and reliability of data throughout its lifecycle. It ensures that data remains consistent and trustworthy, free from unauthorized alterations, errors, or corruption. For HR and recruiting, maintaining data integrity is absolutely critical. Imagine a scenario where candidate contact information in Keap CRM is accidentally altered, or an employee’s benefits enrollment details are corrupted – such inaccuracies can lead to severe operational issues, compliance breaches, and poor candidate or employee experiences. Implementing robust backup and recovery protocols, along with access controls and validation rules, is essential to preserve data integrity and ensure HR decisions are based on reliable information.
Encryption
Encryption is the process of converting data into a coded format to prevent unauthorized access. It scrambles the information using an algorithm and a key, making it unreadable to anyone without the correct decryption key. For HR and recruiting professionals, encryption is an indispensable tool for protecting highly sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of candidates and employees, such as social security numbers, birth dates, and banking details. When data is backed up, especially to the cloud or offsite storage, encryption ensures that even if unauthorized individuals gain access to the backup media, the data remains secure and unintelligible, helping to comply with privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.
Retention Policy
A retention policy is a set of rules dictating how long specific types of data must be kept before they can be legally and safely disposed of. These policies are critical for HR and recruiting, as they govern the lifecycle of sensitive information like job applications, employee records, payroll data, and communication logs. Retention policies are often driven by legal requirements, industry regulations, and internal governance. For example, applicant data might need to be retained for a certain period post-rejection, while employee records have much longer retention periods. Adhering to these policies is essential for compliance, minimizing legal risks, and optimizing storage costs by avoiding unnecessary data accumulation.
Versioning
Versioning refers to the practice of creating and storing multiple different states or iterations of a file or data set. Instead of overwriting a file with each save, a new version is created, allowing users to track changes, compare different revisions, and revert to an earlier state if necessary. In an HR or recruiting context, versioning can be invaluable for documents like employment contracts, offer letters, or detailed candidate profiles that undergo multiple edits and approvals. If a critical change is made in error, versioning enables quick restoration to a previous, correct version, preventing data loss and ensuring accuracy in document management and historical tracking within CRM systems like Keap.
Full Backup
A full backup is the process of copying every selected file and folder on a system to a backup medium. This method provides the most complete and straightforward form of data protection, as it captures all data at a specific point in time. When a recovery is needed, only the most recent full backup is required, making the restoration process quick and simple. However, full backups consume significant storage space and can take a considerable amount of time to complete, especially for large datasets common in HR and recruiting databases. They are often performed less frequently than other backup types, serving as foundational recovery points from which incremental or differential backups build.
Incremental Backup
An incremental backup only copies data that has changed since the *last* backup, regardless of whether that previous backup was full, differential, or another incremental. This method saves significant storage space and reduces backup time because it only captures new or modified data. However, the recovery process for an incremental backup can be more complex and time-consuming. To restore data, you would need the last full backup and all subsequent incremental backups in the correct sequence. For HR and recruiting, incremental backups are often used for frequently updated data within Keap CRM or ATS platforms, where minimizing backup windows is crucial, but recovery speed is balanced against storage efficiency.
Differential Backup
A differential backup copies all data that has changed since the *last full backup*. Unlike incremental backups, which only reference the immediately preceding backup, a differential backup always compares against the most recent full backup. This approach offers a middle ground between full and incremental backups in terms of storage, time, and recovery complexity. While it uses more storage space than an incremental backup (as changes accumulate until the next full backup), recovery is faster than incremental because you only need the last full backup and the latest differential backup to restore your data. For HR systems, differential backups can provide a good balance for data that changes moderately between full backups, such as daily updates to candidate statuses.
If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: The Ultimate Guide to Keap CRM Data Protection for HR & Recruiting: Backup, Recovery, and 5 Critical Post-Restore Validation Steps
