Items to backup from your web site

Depending on the size and type of the website you are having, the backup needs vary. If you have a website with just static content, then including the website source in the backup plan should be sufficient.
But, if you are running a web site driven by a data base and scripts, then your backup should cover all these to ensure a proper recovery

The source files

You should regularly take the backup of the source (static pages as well as the scripts -PHP, ASP, Perl etc ) of your web site. The backup should include any third party source (the scripts for the Blog, Forum software etc ) that you installed on the web site as well. If you keep an up to date copy of your web site in your PC, then backing up that should be sufficient.
If not, you will need to FTP to your web site and download all the source in regular interval.

Data bases

Most of the websites contain a good portion of the website generated dynamically. Blogs and forums are examples. The content comes from the database. So in this case taking backup of just the source is not sufficient. You will have to take the backup of the database as well.

If your website is using MySQL database, you can use PHPMyAdmin interface to backup your data. Most of the hosting services support MySQL and most of the scripts- blogs , forums etc - put their data in the MySQL database.
Remember, you have to take the backup of the entire database; not just some tables. You have to get PHPMyAdmin to export all the data in the database to a file and then download and backup the file safely.

However, if the database is big, it may be difficult to backup using PHPMyAdmin. You will have to use mysqldump command to export the data to a file and then download the data file.
See: this article on mysql backup for an example.

Emails

Although you may be downloading the emails from your web server to local computer, it is just important to include the emails also as part of the web site backup.

Restoring and restore drills

Just like any other backup, your web site backup will be good only if the web site could be restored quickly from your backups. You can test the sufficiency of your backups by running restore drills. But how to run restore drills? It is not recommendable to run test restore drill on your live web site.

The solution is to have a local test web site (running on a local machine) just for the testing purpose. Configuring a local web site is not very difficult; you can download Apache, Mysql and PHP and install them and create a test web site.

Alternatively, you can download a pre-configured vmware virtual appliance that has all the required software installed and ready to go.

Restore drills can expose the glitches in your backups

Could you locate the right backup in short time? If this is a remote backup, could you get to the remote backup service provider within the time limits you expected?
There could be a number of issues that you could face when you or on to the restore process.
When you do the restore drill, document each issue that you faced and the solutions for each. Keep the document safe at a well known location. You will be glad that you did it when an actual restore scenario occurs.

You will identify pieces of data that you missed in your original backup plan

It is common to miss certain pieces of data when you originally plan your backup (See categorizing the data for better backups). Restore drills can help you identify the missing pieces and make your backups more complete

The level of support from the remote backup service provider

As you face problems in restoring the data from the remote servers of your remote backup service provider, keep calling them for support. This will give you a good understanding of the level and the capability of the service the service provider is capable of providing. If it is not satisfactory, you can consider switching to another service provider.

The time to restore

The time to restore is more important than the time to backup. The time to restore equals the time of disruption for the business. So is costly. You could measure the time to restore and find the bottle necks during restore drills. This will help you tune up the process and in turn, reduce the time to backup. Of course, do document the bottle necks that you face and fixes for them as you progress.

Incremental backups can cause long time to restore If this is the case, then you have to increase the frequency of full backups

How frequently should I test?

You should run backup restore drills whenever you make changes to the backup system/process.

In addition, the restore drills should be conducted in regular intervals. Depending on the criticality of the data the interval could vary (once in a month, twice in a month ) but do not make the interval too long.

Documentation is essential

One important outcome of the restore drill will essentially be the documentation. (Lets call it “The backup restore instruction manual”). Note down every single issue that you faced and the fixes for them. It should be clear enough for another person to take the document and restore herself without your involvement.

1. The first page should list the steps for restore clearly

2. There should be a section that covers the issues that can occur and the fixes for them
You should note down even the most minor issues and their fixes - like “if the customer support number of the remote backup service provider is not working , then call this alternative direct number.”

3. Take a print out of the document and keep it in a safe place and let the key persons know the location of the document. Having the printout is important. This is to restore a damaged machine after all : )

Restore test for Live PCs

One most common question is how to conduct restore drills if the machines are in use. You should either keep a spare machine to test the restore drills or grab a spare HDD to run the tests. Either way, it is important that you run the restore drills regularly, for every piece of data you backup.

If you follow a proper data categorization model, the size of the data to be remotely backed up remains less and you get a number of options for systematic remote data backup.

Method1 : Remote data backup to a web hosting account

The high competition in the web hosting market has caused the hosting companies to offer large disk space quotas for very attractive prices. This gives a favorable situation for remote backup as well. You can take the backup, compress and encrypt the data and then upload the file to the remote server through FTP.

If your data size is not too large , uploading to one or more web hosting accounts is a really a good option that you can consider.

Also, you can automate the FTP upload process by having a script that compresses, encrypts and uploads the data to the remote server through FTP.

Method2: Remote data backup using a remote backup service

There are remote data backup companies that offer service to the small/medium sectors as well. The charges depend on the data size. You will need to install a custom piece of software that does the backup.

• You signup with the Remote data backup service provider
• Download a software tool and install it on your PC from the service provider
• Configure the software to backup the files to the remote data centers

You can schedule the remote data backup software to run at predetermined intervals and do the backups automatically

Incremental backups

It is not required to backup ALL your data every time you take the backup. Incremental backups backup only the files that changed after you had taken your backup last time. Incremental backups help in reducing the bandwidth costs and the disk space costs

Comparison

Remote data backup service gives you a ready-made solution. Rather than spending time on putting together automation scripts to upload your data to web servers, you can just download the software from the remote data backup service provider, configure its and let it run the show.

Cost

Remote data services are becoming cheaper. For just $29 per month, you get whopping 10 GB remote data backup space. 10GB should provide sufficient data backup space provided you follow the data categorization. So you have techniques to keep the data backup size to minimum, remote backup service providers that provide data backup services for cheaper rate and software that automates the entire backup process

There is no reason why you loose data one more time!

Almost all businesses depend on computers in one way or the other. As we depend more and more on digitally stored data, the importance of meticulous backup increases.

Have you imagined a situation where computer crashes and you lose all your emails- your address book and all your correspondence ?

What happens if your web server loses all its information? how much time will you take to restore it?

Catastrophes can come in any form: it could be technical: high voltage pulse that burns your hard drive, a virus attack, a hardware failure; or non technical: robbery, flood or any other mishap.

As the business depends more and more on the information stored on the hard disk, it becomes essential that you have a meticulous backup process to ensure business continuity.

Why is Remote Backup important?

Remote backup is important because a physical mishap *can* happen at any place. Unfortunate events are always unexpected. But it is up to you to ensure that your business survives. Would your business survive fire? What about robbery?

Remote backup ensures that your important business data still ‘lives’ safely at some place even after a physical mishap. You can recover the business contacts, the transactions , and all other data you chose to backup.

Aspects to consider for your backup

Time to recover

How much time will it take to recover if a mishap occurs at a very unexpected point of time?
Time to recover is an important parameter because that directly affects the business. It has direct impact on the number of lost customers, customer loyalty and the customer support.

Security

It is important to keep the backed up data safe from tampering or snooping

Local and Remote Backup

Local backup will save you from system crash , virus attack or a hard drive failure. But a local backup may not help you in case of a robbery, fire, flood, terrorist attack or any other physical mishap.
In order to ensure the business continuity, you need to have both a local and remote backup strategy.
The local backup ensures that the Time to recover is minimal whenever possible. Depending on only one of these (Local or Remote ) can not be recommended. If you have only local backup, your business is not fully protected. If you have only remote backup, the time to recover can be painfully long even for a hard disk crash event.

How is Remote Backup Done?

The important business data is compressed, encrypted and is sent to one or more physically distant locations. The data is safely stored in those locations. Remote backup is done in pre-determined intervals.
Sending to the distant location is the bottleneck in the whole process. The easiest way would be to upload the data through an internet connection. The other alternative is to write the backup data to tape or DVD and then send them physically to the remote location.

When done regularly, remote backup saves your data and importantly, your business from any unfortunate event at the place of business.

There would be various sets of data on your hard drive. Backing up the entire hard drive regularly would not be very practical. When you consider remote backup as well, it becomes important to keep the data size to the minimum.

Categorizing the data is so important that I have dedicated this separate post for data categorization.

So we categorize the data set and prioritize them. The most important set is backed up frequently. Also you need to ensure that the most important data set is included in the remote data backup as well.

Categorizing the data:

In broad terms, the data on your Hard disk could be divided in to these groups:

Business data

The most significant data for your business. This includes documents, mails, web site, tax records, investment and other financial records, business records, customer lists, etc.

Personal Data

Personal photos, videos, mails, personal diaries.

System setup

The working system setup, licensed software, license keys.

Setting up your computer to keep the data in an organized way.

If the data in the categories above are scattered all around your hard disk, backup will become a nightmare. Keeping the data of the same priority together helps in better organizing and having a better backup process.

Have your Hard Disk partitioned to have one drive for each of the categories above and one spare partition for local backups and other data.

So dedicate a partition for Business data (lets say, D: ) Personal data (say, E: ) and System data (say, C: )

You can have one more partition to keep other data that does not require backups (G: )

System backup:

In system backup, you take the backup of the running, ‘good’ condition state of your PC. Having the system backup saves you from reformatting and re-installing the O.S in the event of a system crash.

The first thing that you need to do is to ensure that you install all the important software on the system drive (C: drive for example) itself. Then remove all the clutter from the system drive (clear temp files folder, browser cache, ). Do not put any insignificant file in the system drive. It is common bad practice to drag and drop all un necessary files on the desk top. keep your desktop folder clean and avoid all unnecessary files from the desktop folder.

Before taking the backup of the system drive, disable hibernation if you had enabled it (Control panel->Power options->Hibernate tab ). This removes a huge hiberfil.sys file from the HDD. You can re-enable it after taking the backup.

For system backups, you have to take the ‘image’ of the drive itself. Taking image means a track by track, sector by sector data is copied to the backup rather than individual files.
You have to use a software that can take the image of the partition. (Like Norton Ghost, or Boot-It NG).
Take the image to a local drive. Then copy the image to CDs or DVDs. Label the CDs/DVDs with date of backup and keep it safe.

This set of backups will save you in the following situations:

• Virus attack

Load the image back from the last system backup disks. Then run a good virus scanner to ensure that all traces of the virus are gone.

• The boot up fails

It is not very uncommon to be in a situation where the boot up just won’t complete. May be a system driver is misbehaving. Just reload your system drive with the last backup image.

• Some Spy ware got into your system

Suddenly you start seeing some annoying popups. Or there is a new toolbar in your browser window. Just go back to the last system backup.

• System slows down

Could be because of some spyware or some service started misbehaving. Reloading your system from the last backup could solve it in most situations.

Business Data Backup

D: drive (data partition) is the most important because it is where you keep all the business data. You should be strict in that you do *not* allow any other files insignificant to the business is kept in this data drive. On the other hand, all data significant to the business and that requires frequent backups should be put in the data drive only.

One of the challenges would be in getting all the important data to the data drive. Most of the applications keep their data in the system drive itself. There are two alternatives:

• Configure the applications to put their data in the data drive rather than the system drive

You will have to find out the configuration information from their manuals.

• Create some scripts to copy the data in regular intervals to the data drive

The business data drive should be backed up frequently. Also do have a plan to remotely backup the business data as well.

You can use incremental backup to reduce the backup size.

Personal Data Backup

Of course, personal data is important too! Who will not be alarmed to see that the photos of the first birthday of their kid has just disappeared after a hard-disk crash!

Put all your photos, videos, diaries and all personal data in the personal data drive. Get the data backed up on to CDs or DVDs and keep the disks safe. Take the backups in regular intervals.

Half way through!

Once the categorization is done and moved data accordingly, you are half way through the backup process. Now all that you need to is to install scripts to backup data locally and remotely

So it is important that you have a solid backup plan and that it gets executed regularly.

This article takes you through the basic steps that ensure that you never will have a hair- pulling day!

Categorize the data to be backed up

There would be various sets of data on your hard drive. Backing up the entire hard drive regularly would not be very practical. When you consider remote backup as well, it becomes important to keep the data size to the minimum.
The data in broader terms could be categorized as below

• The system setup

(The Operating system installation & the programs that you install )

• Business data
• Personal data

Keep the data according to their priority

It becomes handy to keep the data of similar priority together. Not only this helps in keeping your data better organized, but it prevents you from missing any important piece of data from getting backed up and thus incrementing the backup size.

For example, dedicate a partition say, D: drive for all your business data keep all files: tax returns, contacts, website source and all such information in a proper directory structure under this partition. Keep all unnecessary files out of this partition. Do not install any programs, put any photos, video files or any other non-business files in the data drive; Of course, unless it is having some important business significance.

Configure your programs that deal with business transactions to put their files in the data drive. Or, if that is difficult, schedule a script to copy the data to the data drive frequently.

Design a backup process

The first thing in designing a backup process is to determine the priority of the data items that you classified. (Business data would be the most important, followed by personal info and system setup)

The most important data should be backed up very frequently. The business data should be included in the remote backups.

Complete backups and incremental backups

In order to reduce the backup size and the cost, you can have incremental backups.

A complete backup is taken first and then subsequent backups are incremental. Incremental backups mean that only the changed files are backed up.

Local and remote backups

You need to have both local and remote backups for securing against all mishaps. Local backups secure you from incidents like a hard drive break down, virus attack etc. Local backups allow you to have a quick recovery too. Remote backup secures you in situations like flood, fire, or robbery.

Automate everything

Having manual backup is likely to be neglected over time. Automating the backup process ensures that the backups happen even if you paid no attention to it. Backups could be automated using scripts (Perl, Python) or using ready made applications.

Test your backups frequently

In addition to having a solid backup process, it is important that you test your backups regularly. Unless you test your backups regularly, you may never come to know the ‘bugs’ in your backup process or the issues in the scripts.

Testing the backup is like a fire drill. You pretend as if your data is lost and try to recover the data from the backups. This practice not only helps ensuring that the backups are running smoothly, but it familiarizes you with the recovery process also. In addition, the recovery drill may help you in realizing some pitfalls that exist in your backup process and to fine tune the process.

A sample backup process :

Organizing the data

• All the important business data are kept in the D: drive.
• The mails are backed up from the folders of the mail clients to the D drive every 1 hour. This process is automated using a script

Daily Backups:

The entire D drive is backed up to an external Hard disk (connected through a USB interface) every day. Up to 7 copies of the backup are kept. The backups are zipped and encrypted. The Data in the D drive is incrementally backed up, zipped, encrypted and is then uploaded through FTP to a remote server.

This entire process is automated and runs in the mid night every day (while you are sleeping).

A complete backup of the D drive is taken and uploaded to the remote server every two weeks so recovering would require the last full backup and the subsequent incremental backups.

Backup of the System setup

The Operating system is installed in the C: drive. All the software programs are also installed in the C: drive. The image of the C drive is backed up on the internal hard drive and is copied to DVD discs. This process is done every 1 month.

Personal Data Backups:

Personal data is kept on the E drive. This includes photos taken on the digital camera, personal diary and so on. The personal data is also backed up daily to an external hard disk. In addition, the personal data is copied to a DVD every month and kept safely in a locker.

A backup recovery drill done every two months and the backups are verified.

Paying a bit of attention to a backup process like the one above can save you from the frustration and the business loss that may one day result from data loss.