| The backup process is fully managed by CloudAccess.net and runs automatically. Additionally, we provide tools and services that allow clients to backup their sites locally. We always recommend this as no one can be too careful with their data. |
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Backup PolicyBackups are handled off-server:Client data is protected with multiple off-server backups. This includes both website files and MySQL databases. We backup client data to a separate machine other than the host server. Our backup server is monitored daily to ensure the safety of client data.Our data Retention Policy:We keep one full snapshot of client data and incremental changes. Each day we will make an incremental backup of any changed or newly-created files. The backup process will move these files to our backup servers to keep them safe. We can restore a client site to any point in time within the last fourteen days. This includes both the database and the files. |
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Files Backup:We can restore a client site to any point in time within the last fourteen days. If a file was changed or a mistake is made and a file is deleted, our team can get the data back!Database Backup:We dump a snapshot of the database one time every day and store the file in /backup. The snapshot of the database is completed right before the backup of your files is complete, and it is moved off the client’s production server and to our backup servers as part of the backup process. Remember, databases must be dumped to disk as a file then moved off to backup. We manage this process as part of our platform. If clients need a restore of their database, CloudAccess.net will have five copies of .SQL files in the client’s home directory under /backup and up to fourteen copies of the .SQL files placed on our backup servers. Clients can restore a database on their own, or our team can take this database file and restore it for them. The restoration of specific tables or columns is not part of our standard service. For advanced restoration procedures, we will perform a specialized restoration service for sub-sets of data from a .SQL file.Example Command we use to dump the MySQL database:mysqldump -pxxx -uyour_username -hdb --lock-tables=false database_name | bzip2 -9 > db.sql.bz*We do allow SSH access to our Joomla! Platform. Clients can run this command manually to backup a site or they can use our Cloud Control Panel in the Administration area (the back end” of the Joomla! site. If clients do run this command in SSH on our platform, the command will dump the .SQL file to the current working directory. Databases are dumped to:/backup/database/yyyy-mm-dd_hh-00/db.sql.bz*files are named by year, month, day, and hour of the backup and are packaged as BZip. The Cloudaccess.net team can easily restore these files. BZip is an industry standard for keeping dumped .SQL files. Dumped Database Retention Policy:When our scripts run each day we will dump the latest database snapshot to disk. We will retain only the last five days’ backups in /backup/database/ folder. Our scripts will remove databases that are five days old or older. At the most, clients will see five files that look something like yyyy-mm-dd_hh-00/db.sql.bz. When the files are dumped to disk our backup system will keep them for up to fourteen days; this equates to fourteen copies of the database. If clients end up needing a database older than five business days, they must submit a ticket to our support team to have the older database pulled out of our backup systems.How do you restore your data?We provided 100% managed restorations of your site. Clients do not need to be technologically savvy to get their site restored with CloudAccess.net. Let our team handle and restore the files and database if a mistake is made or something happens as a result of an accident. If clients need to restore data to a specific point in time, open a support ticket and our team will provide a managed restore of files, database, or both.Data is backed up using a private network:Our backups are transferred between application web servers and back-end backup systems over a secure, dedicated, and private network built to handle backups. Essentially, we have a separate VLAN and a separate network interface card dedicated for backups. Data is not passed over the Internet.Backup is free and included in our service offering:We do not charge a service fee for backups. Backups are provided as a convenience to our clients. We allow and encourage clients to make additional backups of their site locally using our Cloud Control Panel or FTP. Even though we do backups for our clients, we still suggest they keep their own copies. Clients can never be too safe with data.Tools to backup your site locally:There are two options for backing up a site manually and locally to a disk. Option 1 is very point-and-click and very user-friendly. Option 2 requires clients to use an FTP client software. These Options are expanded upon below. We suggest a free and easy-to-use tool called filezilla. Clients can download the software at http://filezilla-project.org/.
No charge for Bandwidth on backups:We do not charge clients bandwidth usage for any data that is moved for backup purposes on our private network. Our backups work on a managed internal network that is privately secure and not connected to how we bill for network usage.What software does CloudAccess.net use for backup?We use R1Soft Continuous Data Protection® 3.0 Enterprise Edition to manage our backups. R1soft has been writing backup software for over a decade. Our block level backup systems keep client sites running fast and keep our servers serving data rather then taking up precious IO on scraping the disk for backup. Old systems like Rsynch, or running copy commands via SSH, take a toll on disk IO. Instead, we have advanced technology that takes an inventory of changed files at the block level, and when it’s time to back it up, the technology only moves the files that have changed. We call this incremental block level backup. Most hosting companies use non-block-level backups that scrape the disk causing issues with the server and eating up much needed disk IO. The goal at CloudAccess.net is to make sure data is safe, disks are free to serve your data, and that backups are completed and ready when clients have an emergency.When are backups taken?Backups are completed every day. Backups times may vary based on what area of the network clients are located on when the backup machines allocate time to take the data.Does a human check the backups?We are a very active hosting company and our servers are checked every few hours by a staff member that does day-to-day work for clients who request restores. If data is not in the backup, we immediately begin troubleshooting the issue. We also have R1Soft running automatically in addition to staff members who monitor the backup system and run daily checks. |
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