Backup For Peace Of Mind, Both Development and Production data Options

[iamlost]

Note: split from another topic in After Hours the members only forum.

You mentioned that you have tens of websites. And that you do not have a backup methodology. I believe you can see the catastrophic potential in those two sentences. I would point a whole litany of likely other problematic issues but those can wait for subsequent threads.

A webdev has two points needing backup: the production site (typically a web server) and the development site (typically on your home computer). The loss of a production site loses your revenue, similar to closing a B&M store. The loss of a development site loses planned alterations - wasted time and effort.

Whether and how you decide to backup either or both is personal choice. There are a number of methodology, hardware and software choices. Given your lack of techie knowledge I would suggest you start by developing and becoming familiar with backing up your own computer (your development computer). If you also hold a current copy of your live site(s) on that home computer then they too are backed up if your host(s) go(es) down. A 2-fer sale.

Note: at a later date you may want to investigate versioning.

There are two basic approaches to backups:
1. full backup plus differential backups.
2. full backup plus incremental backups.

A full backup is similar to a full inventory. Everything is backed up as of that point. Differential and incremental backups only backup the changes since the last full backup. Thus they are much faster and take much less room.

Each differential backup backs up back to the full backup point. Example: Full BU on Sunday, DBU on Monday backs up all changes since Sunday, DBU on Tuesday also backs up all changes since Sunday duplicating Mondays DBU and adding Tuesdays, and so on.

The first incremental backup backups up back to the full backup point but each subsequent IBU only backs up to prior IBU.

Thus if using full backup plus differential backups restoring involves two steps - first the last full backup and then the latest DBU. If using full backup plus incremental backups restoring involves 2n steps - first the last full backup and then each subsequent IBU in turn.

Often the reason for choosing between DBU or IBU is the frequency of backups.

Just to confuse you when you thought it was straightforward there are a whole suite of variations of those basics: synthetic full backup, multilevel incremental...

Fortunately there is plenty of software to choose from. Do your due diligence and then follow the directions. Wikipedia has a list - caveat emptor.

What I would recommend as basic best practice for development system is a full backup weekly with hourly incremental backups. That way the most you lose is an hours work. Granted the closer to week's end a disaster the more SBU's to cycle through but with most software that is automatic.

Further I would suggest backing up to a remote harddrive that can be removed and placed in a Faraday case in a fire rated safe or document chest when not working. Plus keeping a thumb drive with full backup and daily IBU copies that go home with you if working in an office.

Lots of personal choice and risk assessment opportunities when working for yourself.

This post has been edited by iamlost: Jul 25 2009, 08:38 AM

[Walter]

Great Post Iamlost,


Copied it and saving it to a word doc for later when I get to this point.



Thanks,

Walter

[jonbey]

iamlost, we are not without you.

OK, Home PC, I do have 2 internal drives, one for backing up, plusa USB drive. So this covers the home PC hardware wise, just need to chose software. I tried Vista backup, and it was doing some sort of daily backup, but then when I looked half the files were empty......

Server backups, this is trickier. The host does do backups, daily, weekly, monthly. I am currently (was before your post I mean) of the mind that this will do, plus my ad hox (about weekly) backup of all databases.

I do plan to get more organised in coming weeks. At the moment I have a folder of scraps of paper on with account, passwords etc. Need to sort all that out. Maybe I will do a backup check list for each account (take some of the procedures from banking) so I can quickly see without tuning on a computer the last time sites were backed up.

As for the server backups - they do have a full backup function in the control panel. I have used this, but space is an issue. So need to get into the habit of downloading and deleting the backups.

So yes, I can do it!

Now just need to chose which software!

[dazzlindonna]

My suggestion for backups:

1. Purchase an external hard drive. They have terabyte drives now for about $100.
2. Get into the habit of downloading the full backup from your host's control panel directly to your new drive daily.
3. Sign up with an online backup service like Mozy or Dropbox. Those services will automagically backup from your drive to their server without you ever needing to do a thing, once you install their app.

Notes:

1. Never ever rely on your host for backups. If your host gets mad at you and decides to dump you as a client, you're toast. Yes, this happens. Many other things can go wrong as well, but that's just an example.

2. Always have multiple backups. One at home, one in the clouds.

3. If your sites have any user generated content, you may want to back up the databases more frequently than once a day. But once a day is bare minimum. AT LEAST do that much.

Hope that helps too.

[jonbey]

OK, it could well be time to make my first small investment in my home business. Backup software! Looked at the Wikipedia page, so many options. Found a list on about.com, and it lists these:

1. Norton Ghost 14.0
2. Acronis True Image 11 Home
3. Norton Save & Restore 2.0
4. Genie Backup Manager Home v8.0

Does anyone have any opinion of any of these for the PC backup part?

Cheers

Jon.

[A.N.Onym]

For home/work computer backups, weekly image backups with Acronis might work better, which would simply backup your entire system (disk or disk partition). If you do development on any of them, just backup your development/work data incrementally.

In case some of you have missed it, here's a backup strategy from Michael Gray, who uses 3 fall backs, online backups being one of them
http://www.wolf-howl.com/business-issues/b...aster-recovery/

Now it goes without saying that an external hard drive is the best solution (4 years ago, DVDs/CDs were the rage). The question is, what else do you do:
- hard disk RAID array to save your data from damage (won't save from viruses or system or non-hardware failures, but a quick restore from a single hard drive failure)
- monthly/quarterly backup to a HDD to be put in a bank safe
- monthly/quarterly backup to an HDD to be put in your own fire-proof safe
- incremental online backup to another server (a convenient way to save daily data to an outside storage)

Do I need to remind you that it *might* be a good idea to have at least some data at an external storage to battle break ins, theft, fire and flood. An external hard drive won't help you there, if you store it on your PC box.

Flash (or any other solid state drives) are not reliable, because they have a fixed amount of rewrites. If you do use them, change the drives themselves often (and not forget them elsewhere).

Needless to say, encrypting the data you store on external disks might help, too, unless it's something that you can afford not to worry about. Special care should be taken to laptop security, here's a first-hand experience article by Lisa Barone, who's become an expert and an advocate in this just recently:
http://outspokenmedia.com/online-marketing...ptop-is-stolen/

I also have to mention an article by Ruud about making sure your digital memories (photos, audio, video, etc) is still readable by your descendants:
http://ruudhein.com/digital-memories

The only problem I see with it is that everyone reading these notes is most likely thinking, "This won't happen with me, I don't need backups". I am guilty on this, too, but I'm planning on at least buying an HDD soonish.

Here's a good motivation article from Rae Hoffman (sugarrae):
http://www.sugarrae.com/psa-only-you-can-prevent-data-loss/

This post has been edited by A.N.Onym: Jul 25 2009, 08:49 PM

[dazzlindonna]

Jon, quite often, if you purchase an external hard drive, it will come with a backup software application with it, so you may not need to buy another. Pretty sure my WD Book external drive came with one. (I say pretty sure, because I don't actually use whatever came with it, since I'm on Linux, and I use one of the many free backup options available).

[projectphp]

I am really p***ed that web devs haven't made version control easier to use. When we get XML documents, life will be a lot easier.

I love Git, because it is really simple and efficient, and with a central repository, you can grab copies on multiple computers. That is pretty much teh ultimate in portability, and anyone doing web wok that DOESN'T use a VC system (Subversion, Git, heck even CVS) is nuts.

[jonbey]

GIT. Great! Although it will take me a while to get to grips with all that.

Yesterday I ordered Acronis True Image Home 2009 from Amazon. Hopefully this will do the trick. First task is to get my home pc fully backup up to internal HDD plus Photos and Websites external HDD to keep elsewhere. Maybe at parents home, rather than a safe/fireproof vault etc. It would be unlucky if both our houses burnt down / got burgled on the same day.

[glyn]

If you backup online make sure your backing up to a non public webfolder. Lots of generic CMS use the same folders, which just makes hacking a lot easier.