A copy of the data held with an operator distinct from the primary provider, the only arrangement that survives the loss of the account itself.
A backup kept inside the platform that hosts production protects against hardware failure, accidental deletion of a file and ransomware encryption, but not against events that reach the account itself, such as administrative deletion, commercial dispute, international sanctions or compromise of administrative credentials. Such events are rare and their severity is total, which makes them insurance material rather than an operations matter. An out-of-provider backup therefore means holding a copy with a distinct operator, under distinct credentials, and periodically proving that it restores, since a copy never restored is merely a cost whose protective value is unknown. Recent cyber wordings make it a condition of cover for data reconstitution, on a par with multi-factor authentication, and proposal forms now distinguish immutability of the copy from mere logical separation. The familiar operations rule of three copies on two media with one off site keeps its full value provided off site is read as off provider.
In May 2024, the Australian pension fund UniSuper, managing roughly 125 billion Australian dollars, had its hosting environment deleted following a misconfiguration at Google Cloud. Recovery, announced jointly by both companies, was possible only because backups were held with a separate provider.
third-party backup, sauvegarde externalisée, backup hors plateforme, copie hors fournisseur