What's Your Backup Plan?

Backup Plan

The bottom line is hackers are relentless!  You may also think it is your Web hosts’ responsibility to maintain backups.  While our servers are backed up daily with copies stored securely offsite, it truly is up to you to take the responsibility of ensuring you have the most up-to-date backup of your emails, website files and databases. Taking the responsibility of backing up your own files ensures:

1. You can react quickly - having access to a recent backup file will get you back online rapidly.
2. Peace of mind – just knowing that you can recover quickly and maintain a near 24-hour online presence for your business.
3. Protection against viruses and hackers – virus scans are run on our servers periodically, however it is challenging to stay ahead of every threat and attack. Keeping a backup is your best protection for recovering quickly from an attack.

Backup Solutions

Manual Backups

Manual backups are the lowest-tech method – involving selection of the files and folders you wish to archive and then manually FTP-ing (file transfer protocol) to your local computer. Here are some things to keep in mind when using a manual backup method:

• Set calendar reminders to back up your site, emails and databases regularly.
• Large websites can take awhile to download locally.
• You must ensure your download has completed properly (if there are hiccups in your Internet connectivity, this can cause incomplete downloads).
• You should have a good system for organizing backups for easy retrieval and restoration.

Be sure to backup any databases, especially those of you running ecommerce applications or content management systems (CMS) such as Joomla or WordPress websites.

cPanel Backups

Your website hosting account is equipped with cPanel which makes backing up easy. Here are the steps:

1. Log into your cPanel control panel using http://www.yourwebsitedomain.com/cpanel.
2. On the cPanel homepage, locate the Files section and click on the "Backup Wizard" icon.
3. Select the “Backup" link.
4. If it is your first time creating a backup, click “Full Backup” on the next screen.  If you have been creating backups regularly, you can select “Partial Backup” for the home directory or databases.
5. Select a "Backup Destination" of "Home Directory" and enter your email address, before clicking the "Generate Backup" button.
6. You'll receive an email when the backup has completed.

Important: Be sure to download the backup to a local computer where it can be safely stored. You must remember to backup frequently and keep the backup files in a safe place.

Great CMS Backup Tools

If your website is running on a CMS application such as WordPress, UpDraftPlus (https://updraftplus.com/) is an excellent utility.  For those of you running Joomla, Akeeba Backup (https://www.akeebabackup.com) is an excellent choice. As with any backup solution, be sure you test the ability to be able to restore your backups.

In Summary

When creating your backup plan, be sure to keep these in mind:

1. Choose a backup method and solution that fits your budget.
2. Determine the best backup schedule – if your content does not change too often this may impact that schedule. If you are running an ecommerce solution, we recommend more frequent backups (especially of the database) and when your transaction traffic will be at its lowest.
3. Check your backups frequently to ensure they are complete and have not been corrupted during the creation or download process.
4. Backup Now! You don’t want any regrets.