Backup Radar

From Event Noise to System Intelligence

Turning fragmented backup events into a structured, real-time view of system health for MSPs worldwide.

Overview

Backup Radar (owned by ScalePad) is a monitoring platform used by Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to track backup health across multiple customers and backup applications. The system aggregates backup activity from disparate tools and surfaces it within a unified interface and PSA workflow.

My role

I led the UX design and validation of Backup Plans, transforming Backup Radar from event-based monitoring into a structured SLA and RPO-driven backup intelligence system.

As ScalePad is a multi-product company, I also coordinated with a broader team of UX designers to ensure consistent UX patterns and brand continuity across the platform.

Problem

Before Backup Plans, Backup Radar used a Templates-based model to configure and monitor backup activity, creating several structural gaps in how backup health and SLA compliance were understood.

Fragmented configuration: schedules, ticketing rules, and activation settings were spread across multiple areas, requiring manual stitching of configuration and increasing risk of error.
Operational noise: alerts and tickets were generated per job, creating high volumes of low-context notifications and reducing signal clarity.
Reactive monitoring: reliance on next-day log review meant issues were identified after execution, limiting proactive response.
Limited compliance visibility: no unified view of SLA or system risk, making it difficult to assess whether backup expectations were being met.

Discovery

A number of discovery methods were used to capture the current state of the product.

Collaborating with onboarding and sales engineering teams to synthesize recurring issues observed during partner setup and implementation conversations
Reviewing posts and discussions in the ScalePad Community to identify recurring pain points reported by active MSP users
Engaging members of the Partner Advisory Council (PAC) to gather deeper feedback on Templates-based usage and configuration challenges in real-world usage

Community discussions highlighting recurring usability issues and product requests from active MSP users, used to identify patterns in real-world workflows.

Key Insights

Synthesis of research and partner feedback revealed several consistent system-level patterns:

Users were not thinking in terms of individual backup jobs, but expected a single, unified view of backup system health across all components
The Templates model reinforced fragmented mental models, where configuration and outcomes were disconnected across different parts of the product
“Success” at the job level did not accurately reflect system health, particularly when considering SLA and RPO requirements
MSPs were reacting to alert volume rather than evaluating underlying risk, leading to inefficiency and alert fatigue
There was a strong need for grouping and hierarchy, where backup, replication, and verification steps could be understood as a single lifecycle rather than isolated events

Goals

Based on the insights from research and partner feedback, the redesign aimed to:

Shift from event-based monitoring to a system-level model of backup health
Introduce SLA and RPO-driven evaluation to determine compliance and risk, rather than relying on isolated job outcomes
Reduce alert noise by aggregating signals into meaningful, risk-based indicators
Unify backup lifecycle data (backup, replication, verification) into a single structured view
Improve clarity and speed of understanding for MSPs monitoring large, multi-customer environments

Design Process

The initial concept focused on shifting Backup Radar from event-based monitoring to a structured, rule-driven model using Backup Plans. This introduced grouped backup lifecycles (backup, replication, verification) and SLA/RPO-based evaluation to define system-level health.

MSP-specific segmentation rules (device, naming, etc.) extend ingestion criteria beyond Backup Application vendor.

Backup Plans use SLA and RPO criteria to determine compliance, giving users clearer control over how backup health is defined, and when to create tickets.

Prototyping covered multiple key areas of the product, including:

the Backup Plans setup wizard, where users define rules and configuration logic
the new Daily Activity view, which replaced and extended the legacy Audit screen with a structured, lifecycle-based representation of backup activity
existing surfaces such as the dashboard, edit views, and report generation, which were iterated to support both legacy Template-based results and new Backup Plans data structures

Across these areas, design decisions were continuously balanced against system constraints, focusing on what could be realistically delivered within implementation timelines while still improving clarity and system consistency.

Both traditional low-fidelity prototyping and AI-assisted exploration were used throughout the process as the model evolved toward production.

SLA Status and SLA History were introduced in the Daily Activity view to provide a clearer, near real-time representation of backup compliance over time.

Report generation was updated to support both legacy and Backup Plans data, with structured sections designed to maintain continuity while encouraging migration to the new model.

Remote usability testing

Concept testing was conducted with PAC MSP partners using the Backup Plans setup wizard prototype.

Key findings included:

revised labels were needed to better reflect industry-standard terminology, improving intuitiveness and reducing translation effort from external backup tools
RPO and SLA configuration needed to be re-organized in relation to schedule definition and SLA windows to make their dependency and relationship more explicit
SLA configuration required increased granularity to support a wider range of real-world backup policies and edge cases
users needed to manually recreate existing backup configurations from their backup applications, making consistent and universal terminology critical for accurate mapping and reduced interpretation errors

These insights directly informed refinements to the wizard structure, terminology system, and configuration model clarity.

Outcomes

Backup Plans was rolled out in a phased approach to mitigate risk. Adoption was gradual, and while some users continued to prefer the legacy Templates workflow due to familiarity, this feedback directly informed further design work on shared views that could support both legacy and Backup Plans data structures.

There was insufficient time and data to evaluate long-term migration outcomes, as adoption remained in progress during a staged rollout.

Final Thoughts

This project focused on evolving Backup Radar from a flat, event-based monitoring system into a structured model for interpreting backup health through SLA and RPO-driven logic. A key challenge was introducing this new unified model within an existing Templates-based system, requiring careful balance between innovation, backward compatibility, and real-world MSP workflows.

Ultimately, the work showed how system-level clarity in enterprise tools emerges through incremental restructuring of mental models, data relationships, and user interpretation rather than visual redesign alone.

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