Your backup is only as good as your last successful restore. OAS delivers enterprise-grade backup and disaster recovery as the "Recover" pillar of the Three Pillar Managed Security framework — because protection and detection mean nothing if your data cannot be recovered.
The Problem: Untested Backups and Unprotected Data
South African businesses face a difficult truth about their data protection:
Ransomware targets backups first.
Modern ransomware actively seeks and encrypts local backup files, NAS devices, and connected storage before locking production data. On-premises backups stored on the same network are not safe.
Microsoft does not back up your data.
Microsoft 365 operates on a shared responsibility model. Microsoft guarantees platform uptime — not your data. Accidental deletions, malicious insiders, and retention policy gaps can result in permanent data loss.
Most disaster recovery plans are untested.
Many organisations have backup processes in place but have never verified a full restore. When a real incident occurs, untested backups fail at the worst possible moment.
Compliance demands proof.
POPIA, PCI-DSS, and FSCA regulations require demonstrable data protection controls. "We run backups" is not sufficient — auditors want evidence of successful recovery.
Cloud-First, Appliance-Free Backup
OAS deploys Cove Data Protection (N-able) as a direct-to-cloud backup platform. There are no on-site appliances to purchase, maintain, or replace. Backups travel directly from your endpoints to N-able's private cloud infrastructure.
Why cloud-first matters:
- No local backup hardware vulnerable to ransomware, theft, or physical damage
- Remote and hybrid workers are protected from any location — no VPN required
- Cloud storage is included in the subscription — no separate storage fees
- Data centres in 30 locations across five continents, with South African data residency supported
TrueDelta Technology
Cove's proprietary TrueDelta engine tracks changes at the block level, not the file level. Incremental backups are up to 60x smaller than traditional image-based solutions. Smaller backups mean faster transfers, more frequent restore points, and tighter recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).
What We Protect
Servers
Physical and virtual servers — Windows, Linux, and macOS. Full protection for Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and VMware/Hyper-V virtual machines. Direct-to-cloud backup with file-level, bare-metal, and virtual recovery options.
Workstations
Endpoint data protection for Windows and macOS workstations. Laptops containing critical business data are backed up directly to the cloud from any location. Essential for organisations with remote and hybrid workers.
Microsoft 365
- Exchange backed up up to six times per day
- SharePoint (including Teams files and data) backed up up to four times per day
- OneDrive files protected with granular restore
- Individual emails, files, contacts, calendar items, and Teams conversations recoverable
Microsoft provides infrastructure resilience. OAS provides data backup. The distinction matters when a user accidentally deletes a mailbox or a departing employee removes critical files.
Recovery Options
When an incident occurs, speed and flexibility determine how quickly your business resumes operations. Cove provides multiple recovery methods matched to different scenarios:
File and Folder Restore
granular recovery of individual files, folders, or application data
Bare-Metal Recovery
full system restore to the same or different physical hardware, including operating system, applications, and data
Virtual Recovery
restore servers as virtual machines on Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, or Microsoft Azure
Standby Image
a pre-staged, bootable virtual machine kept ready in Hyper-V, ESXi, or Azure for near-instant failover. No duplicate hardware costs. When production fails, your standby server takes over
Microsoft 365 Granular Restore
recover individual emails, SharePoint documents, Teams conversations, and OneDrive files without restoring entire mailboxes
Ransomware-Resilient Storage
Cove backups are encrypted with AES-256 at rest and in transit. Customer-managed encryption keys are available for organisations with strict key management requirements.
Cloud-stored backups are immutable and isolated from your network. Ransomware that encrypts your servers, workstations, and local storage cannot reach your cloud backups. Combined with SentinelOne's ransomware rollback, OAS provides two independent recovery paths after any ransomware incident — rollback for immediate file restoration and Cove backup for full system recovery.
Automated Recovery Testing
Can you prove your backups work? Cove's Automated Recovery Testing provides the answer.
- Scheduled every 14 or 30 days — fully automated, no manual intervention required
- Creates a virtual machine in N-able's secure cloud, boots it, and captures a verification screenshot
- AI/ML-powered boot verification achieves over 99% success rate
- Generates documented, auditable proof of recoverability
- No local resources consumed — testing runs entirely in N-able's cloud
Recovery Testing eliminates the most dangerous assumption in IT: that backups will work when needed. For compliance audits under POPIA, PCI-DSS, and FSCA, automated test results provide the evidence auditors specifically request.
Disaster Recovery Planning and Compliance
OAS integrates Cove backup management into the N-able RMM console, providing a single dashboard for monitoring backup status, recovery testing results, and compliance reporting across your entire environment.
Configurable retention policies support daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly retention schedules with archive mode for long-term compliance requirements. Every backup event, recovery test, and restore operation is logged for audit purposes.
South African data sovereignty is supported through N-able data centres with SA residency options. Your data remains within South African borders — a requirement for POPIA compliance and many industry-specific regulations.
Part of the Three Pillar Framework
Backup and disaster recovery is the third pillar — the safety net beneath SentinelOne endpoint protection (Protect) and N-able RMM monitoring (Detect). When prevention and detection are not enough, Cove ensures your organisation recovers.
One framework. Three layers of defence. One monthly subscription managed by a trusted partner with over 40 years of enterprise IT experience.
→ Learn more about our Cove Data Protection partnership