What are backups?
Backups are copies of the database and files you can restore.
What it is
A backup is a copy you return to when a database is empty, a deploy went wrong, or someone deleted the wrong rows. A copy on the same disk does not help when the disk is gone. The point is a second place and a state you can name: last night, before the deploy, before the migration.
The difference between a copy and a backup is whether you can open that state somewhere else, at a moment you can name.
What it is made of
Schedule and retention belong to it. A full copy every night, or more often only the changes. How many days stay. Whether you also have a copy outside the data center. A backup nobody has ever restored is a hope, not a backup. A check that the copy opens and the app starts from it belongs to it.
What goes wrong
Database and files are two backups. One without the other produces a state that does not fit together: new files and old rows, or the other way around. The time of both copies should be close.
How it shows up on MainPath
On MainPath backups are part of operations. The steps are under Backups. You restore a state without maintaining scripts on every server that nobody has run for months.