Every website owner and server administrator should have a backup system set up. This is a fundamental necessity, because no one is immune to possible hacker attacks or accidents that could potentially lead to data loss. In order to be able to quickly and easily restore data in case of such situations, a backup technology known as backup has been developed.
According to Murphy's Law, when something bad can happen, it's likely to happen. That's how websites can sometimes "go down". But there's a great way to bring them back to life - download a backup from the archive and restore everything that was lost.
The importance of backups for data reliability and security
While for mobile device users, backup archiving is necessary solely to recover lost data, in business, backup helps minimize risks and avoid additional costs.
Potential threats to website data can be varied and accompanied by loss of information.
- Technical hardware failures. Sometimes hard disks can fail suddenly, resulting in data loss if copies are not created regularly.
- Cyberattacks. Attackers and hackers attempt to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.
- Natural disasters. Floods, fires, earthquakes, and other natural disasters cause physical damage to servers and data centers, which can result in data loss.
Negative consequences of lack of backups
Data loss can have a serious impact on your website and business reputation.
For example, it leads to prolonged downtime when you have to recover or recreate lost information. During this time, visitors are lost, unsatisfied customers increase, and revenue drops. Data leaks and permanent loss of information severely erode customer trust, and rebuilding loyalty takes significant effort and time. If you are unable to provide partners with the necessary information on time, it causes tension in relationships and leads to problems in business processes.
Also, depending on the type of business you are in, the loss of information could result in a breach of data protection laws, with legal consequences and fines, and if the lost data contains important strategic information about your business, it could help hinder the development and implementation of business strategies.
Important benefits of timely backups
- Ease of use. Setting up automatic backups and restoring data is easy nowadays.
- Time and energy saving. Thanks to the automatic process, there is virtually no time and effort spent on creating backups. This is incomparable to the cost required when restoring information manually.
- Reduced costs. Your team can resume work immediately after an unpleasant incident.
How does the backup work?
Depending on the recovery technology chosen by the user, backup processes may vary slightly, but the general principles remain roughly the same.
The first step is to select the data and information to be backed up. Usually important files, documents, SQL databases, and other critical information are selected. The next step is to select the backup method. There are different options: full, incremental and differential backups.
Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and the choice of methodology depends on specific requirements and constraints. Then you need to choose a place to store the copy. Most often the storage is a physical medium - a hard disk, but it is gradually being replaced by new solutions in virtual cloud storage. The last step is the process of copying and saving data.
From time to time, the backup should be tested and verified to be working properly, if the copying is performed automatically. It is also important to choose the optimal frequency of backup creation - a schedule. For a simple website it can be one copy per week or even per month, but for some types of businesses and government agencies it is important to update copies several times a day so that you can restore the server from backup at any time.
When you need to restore a server from backup
- Unintentional corruption or deletion of data by mistake.
- Complete or partial disk failure.
- Physical failure of a server.
- Loss of data from a server or group of servers due to theft, fire, flood, hurricane, or other force majeure.
- Application and program errors resulting in deletion and corruption of data.
- Operating system errors resulting in corruption of the file system or individual files.
- Sudden power failure resulting in irreparable damage to the file system.
- Data corruption or deletion due to hackers or malware.
- Detection of missing or corrupted data after the retention period of backups has expired.
Restore from backup in the server control panel
Restoring a server from backup is an important procedure that allows you to get back the data and settings from the backup. In most types of hosting, a free automatic backup system is provided by the hosting provider, and you do not have access to its settings. On a dedicated and shared server, you configure the backup yourself, and you can do this through the control panel. If you are using a Windows-based server and do not have the ISPmanager panel, you can use the Acronis utility to configure backups.
Warning! Restoring data from a backup will delete all changes on the server that were made after the backup was created.
ISPmanager
Each user who logs in to the ISPmanager control panel with his login and password can restore his files from a backup copy. He can view the contents of each backup and restore both individual parts and the entire backup. To do this, go to the "Backups" section and click on the "Data" section. Also, the "New" button in the same menu allows you to create instant backups.
The administrator has the ability to restore any user's data from a backup, but only the entire backup at once. Viewing and restoring individually is not available.
VestaCP
To restore data - go to the "Backups" section in the menu. To customize the restore settings for a particular backup - click on it. If you want to restore all data - click the "Restore all" button. And if you need a separate item from the backup - select it and click the "Restore" button. Don't forget to save your changes after data recovery.
DirectAdmin
In the main menu, find "Account Management - Backups" and click on it.
You will be taken to the user's backup management page. At the bottom you will see a "Select a file to restore" form.
Select the file you want to recover. If you need several files, select all of them. Then click the "Select recovery options" button. In the window that opens, uncheck the options you don't need and click "Restore Selected".
If the restore runs successfully, you will see a page with the message "Restore will run in the background". After successful completion of the process, the panel system messages will show the ticket "Your User files have been restored". In case of an error, a ticket will be created with the title "An error occurred during the restore". The reasons for the error are specified in the message content.
Conclusion
In order to ensure the safety and security of server data, it is recommended to apply appropriate measures: regular backups and the use of modern means of protection against cyberattacks. In the course of administration, do not forget about physical protection of equipment, storage of archived data on external media or remote servers.
