CDE Backup™ keeps an ongoing, independent copy of your project files, versions and metadata in your own Microsoft Azure tenancy. It runs on a schedule you set while the project is live, so if the CDE is hit by ransomware, suffers a long outage or becomes unavailable for contractual reasons, the project record is still in your hands.
What a vendor backup covers
CDE vendors back up their platforms, and those backups matter. Their purpose is to restore the vendor's service on the vendor's timetable. They give the project no copy of its own, and they cannot help when the problem is a compromised account, a lapsed licence or a dispute with the vendor.
Most projects hold their record as a single instance inside one CDE. Drawings, approvals and correspondence all flow through it, so an outage stops design, document control and site teams at the same moment. The industry has seen this happen. In 2020 Bouygues Construction was hit by the Maze ransomware attack and had to shut down its project systems.
How CDE Backup™ works
You connect the CDE, choose the projects and folders to protect, and set how often the copy refreshes. CDE Backup™ then copies files, every version and the metadata into your Azure storage in the region you choose. The folder structure and metadata mapping come across with the files, so the copy can be used to restore the platform or to keep working elsewhere.
Files stream directly from the CDE into your tenancy. Utopia Digital never stores them, and holds only encrypted credentials, configuration and audit logs. Longer-term copies can sit in cold storage tiers to keep costs down.
What it protects against
Ransomware or cyber attack on the CDE or its accounts.
Extended vendor outages.
Loss of access after a contract ends or a vendor changes its terms.
Accidental or malicious deletion inside the platform.
The business case
The cost of an outage is easy to underestimate because it hits every team on every project hosted on that platform at once. The CDE Backup™ page has a calculator that estimates idle labour from your own team sizes, rates and outage length. Holding your own copy also strengthens your position when a vendor reprices or a contract ends, because moving away no longer puts the record at risk.
CDE Backup™ and the Utopiaverse™
CDE Backup™ runs throughout a project as part of the Utopiaverse™. The copy it maintains in your Azure joins data from CDE Sync™, CDE Migrate™ and CDE Archive™ in one connected record. AI Insights searches that same record, so the copy that keeps work going during an outage also lets your team find information across the portfolio on an ordinary day.