Reboot-to-Restore Explained: How Deep Freeze Keeps Systems Clean Without Constant IT Intervention

For 90% of firms, IT downtime can cost more than $300,000 per hour. For smaller businesses, the figures will be lower; but so are revenues, and margins can be very slim. Businesses need their IT systems to work, but downtime can occur for a number of reasons. Thankfully, Deep Freeze can address just about all those reasons.

What Is Faronics Deep Freeze?

Faronics Deep Freeze is a software solution that makes computer configurations virtually indestructible. It functions by freezing workstations at a desired baseline. Deep Freeze can instantly erase any unwanted changes with a simple reboot, whether they occurred accidentally or through malicious intent. Restarting the machine resets it to its pristine, pre-configured state. 

Deep Freeze is used by IT departments to prevent configuration drift, software issues, and malware. It reduces downtime and IT workload, particularly in public access environments such as libraries or labs, by enforcing consistency. 

How Reboot-to-Restore Works

Reboot-to-Restore technology is the linchpin of Faronics Deep Freeze. While many security features are useful, Reboot-to-Restore is the ultimate defensive technology. Here’s how it works:

1. Snapshot: Deep Freeze takes a snapshot of the entire system, including the hard drive and its partitions.
2. Freeze: The software then “freezes” the system in this state, protecting it from unauthorized changes.
3. Redirect: Deep Freeze operates at a low system level to redirect any data written to the drive, leaving the original data untouched.
4. Reboot-to-Restore: When the computer restarts, all changes, downloads, viruses, or accidental modifications are wiped out, and the system reverts to the frozen baseline. 

How This Helps IT Systems

From small businesses with ten computers and one IT administrator to large corporations with hybrid or remote workforces to organizations that operate public-facing kiosks or workstations, IT management is rarely easy. There are always updates, monitoring and backups to take care of. Unfortunately, IT professionals’ jobs are made that much more difficult by a series of help desk tickets that potentially didn’t require IT intervention. By defending workstations and giving staff a simple way to fix numerous problems, Deep Freeze frees up IT professionals to focus on more pressing issues. 

What Problems Do IT Systems Face?

An organization’s IT infrastructure faces myriad challenges every day, from malicious threat actors to aging systems to honest mistakes. Common IT issues include:

• Cybersecurity attacks: Malicious threats such as ransomware, phishing, and DDoS attacks can paralyze operations and compromise sensitive data.
• Legacy hardware and software: Outdated systems are prone to frequent crashes, lack essential security patches and often struggle to integrate with modern tools.
• Human error: Accidental deletions or misconfigured settings by employees remain leading causes of unplanned system downtime.
• Network instability: Poor internet connectivity or failing switches can disrupt communication and block access to critical cloud-based resources.
• Data loss without recovery: Without robust, tested backups, a simple hardware failure or file corruption can lead to the permanent loss of vital business information.
• Scalability bottlenecks: Systems that cannot grow with the business often become slow and unresponsive as user demand and data volume increase.
• Inadequate monitoring: A “reactive” approach to IT means issues are only addressed after they have already caused a shutdown, rather than being caught early.

If IT pros are constantly putting out fires, reacting to the latest problems, they can’t adequately manage and improve the overall system. Deep Freeze acts as a sort of barrier, addressing many of these issues directly, allowing IT teams to more comprehensively attend to other maintenance work.

Use Cases for Deep Freeze

Having trouble envisioning how Deep Freeze can help? Let’s look at some different scenarios.

A small business with shared workspaces relies on collaboration — and tech — to create profitable innovations. But the small IT staff is consistently overwhelmed by trying to help employees figure out various issues with their computers. With Deep Freeze, any odd changes that previous personnel have made don’t matter — they’re just wiped out upon restart.

Similarly, imagine a real store with self-checkout kiosks. These are computers designed for very specific reasons. How much can go wrong? Well, you might be surprised. Customers can do just about anything when looking for a way to scan their rewards card or to punch in the product number on an avocado. One weird decision by a customer could mean hours of an IT worker’s time trying to fix the station. But with Reboot-to-Restore, it only takes a minute. A simple restart and the kiosk is as good as new.

Simplify Your IT

Want a clean, easy-to-manage and simple-to-fix IT infrastructure? Reach out to the Faronics team and find out how Deep Freeze can deliver the clean IT system you need.