| The most important task of any system | | | | working system. |
| administrator is backing up the systems they | | | | |
| are responsible for. Not putting the system | | | | Both strategies can, and probably should, be |
| up, not keeping it running, backing it up and | | | | combined. An archival-only strategy requires |
| being able to restore is primary. | | | | the system administrators to reinstall and |
| | | | reconfigure the operating system prior to |
| A system with no backup cannot be relied upon | | | | restoring the data; this takes longer and is |
| for any real purpose, because if anything | | | | more error prone. |
| goes wrong your data is gone. | | | | |
| | | | Any backup strategy must be tested. |
| Something always goes wrong eventually, and | | | | |
| without good backups all of your work, and | | | | A DR backup is tested by restoring a system |
| possible your entire business is just plain | | | | backup onto a fresh system to make sure you |
| gone. | | | | can recover from an emergency. |
| | | | |
| A good backup strategy is composed of backup, | | | | Archival strategies are tested by retrieving |
| storage, verification, and restoration. The | | | | files and verifying that you can find the |
| backup component covers selection of method | | | | files you need and that they are readable |
| and which data to backup (all of it by | | | | once restored. An untested backup strategy is |
| choice). | | | | usually a complete waste of time and money. |
| | | | |
| Storage covers both what media you back up | | | | For web hosting clients, you will usually do |
| onto as well as where you keep them (if your | | | | your backups with the cPanel administrative |
| building burns down, tapes kept in the server | | | | interface.cPanel will let you backup your |
| room will be useless). | | | | entire hosted site, your databases, or your |
| | | | home directory (which will contain your |
| Verification is a crucial component of a | | | | website but not the data behind it). |
| backup strategy, you have to know you have | | | | |
| usable data. | | | | To perform a backup you simply access the |
| | | | Backup control panel and select a type of |
| Lastly, you need to be able to get the data | | | | backup. The system performs the backup and |
| back to where it can be used. | | | | downloads the file to your local system. |
| | | | |
| There are two main strategies for backups: | | | | These backups can be restored through the |
| Disaster Recovery and Archival. | | | | same interface. |
| | | | |
| DR backups are designed to restore a system | | | | To test, you would create a new hosted site |
| to a working state. To do this you backup the | | | | and restore your backups to it. |
| entire system so that you can restore it onto | | | | |
| another machine to get a working system. | | | | The downloaded backup files are important |
| | | | (possibly confidential) data and should be |
| An archival strategy is concerned with | | | | integrated into your local backup strategy. |
| retrieving historical data ('give me the | | | | |
| customer database as it appeared at the end | | | | At the least, burn them to disks if you can't |
| of last year') and not with restoring a | | | | arrange to include them in your main backups. |