Why Website Backups Can Save Your Business ?

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It doesn’t matter whether you have an online-shop or a personal website, losing all the information you have on your site is definitely a nightmare because you have worked materially and spiritually for the content of your site and it can never be guaranteed that there will be no problems for Your site will not appear, while the most reliable sites sometimes have problems; One of the preventive methods that assures site owners that their efforts will not be lost in the blink of an eye is backing up the site. As you know, one of the most important and key tasks performed by site support specialists is to make a backup copy of your site information. By having a backup copy of the website, in case of problems and data loss, you can quickly use the latest backed up information and reduce losses such as data loss and website downtime. Backup, the process of copying and storing important data and information in order to protect them from hardware and software failures, cyber attacks, server fires, and financial and spiritual losses for site owners; Is. This process usually involves creating an alternate copy of the data and storing it in a secure location separate from the original data location. The main purpose of backup is to ensure data recovery in case of problems. Backup is a preventive measure to maintain the security and integrity of data, which can prevent serious and irreparable problems in critical times. If you need an expert site support team, don’t miss ” website support plans “ page.

What are the benefits of regular backups?

Creating backups of files is a crucial aspect of managing research data as it guarantees the ability to recover original data files from backup copies in case they are corrupted or lost. Regularly creating backups is important in safeguarding against unintentional or deliberate data loss caused by human error or hardware failure.

Protection against hardware and software failures
– Regular backups can help you recover your data and prevent data loss in case of sudden hardware failures or software errors.
Security against cyber attacks
– Regular backups allow you to access and restore previous and healthy versions of your data in case of cyber-attacks such as ransomware.
Quick recovery of information in emergency situations
– By having regular and up-to-date backups, you can quickly restore your data in case of emergency and crisis and avoid long-term stoppage of operations and services.
Avoid losing critical data
– Regular backup helps to prevent the loss of critical and sensitive data. This is especially important for businesses and organizations that depend on data.

How to set up and schedule regular backups

Determining suitable schedules for backup

Needs Analysis: First, you need to review the needs of your business or site and determine which data needs to be backed up and how often they need to be backed up.
Scheduling schedule: according to the importance and data changes, determine a suitable schedule for backup. For example, daily backup for sensitive and important data and weekly or monthly backup for less important data.
Low-traffic times: perform backups at times when there is less traffic on the server or system so that the backup process can be performed without disrupting system performance.

Automate the backup process

Using backup software: There are various tools and software that help you automate the backup process. These softwares allow you to set specific schedules and the backup will be done automatically.
Monitoring and alerts: Make sure that the backup software has monitoring capabilities and sends alerts in case of problems in the backup process. This possibility helps you to be informed quickly and take the necessary actions in case of a problem.
Periodic review and testing: Periodically review and test your backups to ensure their correctness and recoverability. This will help you use backups confidently in case of emergency.

Examples of organizations and companies that have had problems due to lack of backup

A GitLab engineer accidentally ran a data wipe command, which resulted in the deletion of the original database. The incident caused GitLab to be down for five hours and a lot of valuable user data was lost. The main problem was that the existing backups were insufficient and incomplete.
A Pixar employee accidentally ran a command that deleted most of the files related to the Toy Story 2 animation. Although Pixar had regular backups, it found that these backups were incomplete and unusable. Fortunately, one of the employees had a copy of the files at home, which saved the project.
The social networking service Ma.Gnolia suffered a major database crash. Due to the lack of regular and reliable backups, many users’ data was lost and the company was unable to recover it, which eventually led to the service’s shutdown.
One of the British government’s email servers crashed, causing the loss of important email data. Due to the lack of regular backups, email data was lost forever, and this issue caused many problems and criticisms.
In 2018, online fashion store ASOS suffered a cyber attack that took their site down for several hours. This incident prevented customers from making purchases and the company could not quickly restore the site due to the lack of proper backups of the site. This resulted in lost sales and damage to ASOS’s reputation.
The store site of the Spanish fashion brand Mango suffered a server failure in 2017, which led to the loss of important site data and the online store was unavailable for several days. Due to the lack of regular and valid backups, site recovery took a long time and this caused a significant loss of sales during that period.
In 2019, Forever 21’s store website suffered a cyber attack that resulted in the loss of customer data and sales information. This incident led to the permanent loss of some store data and information due to the lack of up-to-date and reliable backups, which had a negative impact on the brand’s reputation.
The American Eagle store site was unavailable for a significant period of time in 2016 due to technical issues and server failures. Due to the lack of proper backups and a quick recovery plan, the site did not recover quickly and this led to lost sales and customer dissatisfaction.
Just a few days after the new year, a fire broke out in part of the OVH data center in France. This incident, which occurred due to a fire in a part of the data center, severely affected some customer services and led to the loss of data due to the fire.
In 2018, the hard servers of two companies were seized by the German police without prior notice. Finally, after 2 months, the hard drives were removed from the security space and returned to the data center, but no one was responsible for the losses caused to the owners of the sites that had purchased hosting from these two companies.

Best practices and key tips in backup

Backing up important data and information is one of the basic principles in managing information technology and data security. To ensure that backups are effective and usable in an emergency, there are best practices and key points to follow. Below are some of these methods and key points:

Keeping multiple copies of backups

1. Using multiple versions and storage locations:

One of the best backup practices is to keep multiple copies of backups in different locations. This ensures that if there is a problem with one version or storage location, other versions are available.
Backups can be stored locally (on external hard drives or local servers) and in the cloud (on online storage services). This diversity in storage location increases the level of reliability and security of backups.

2. Using the 3-2-1 principles:

According to this principle, you should have at least three copies of the data, two copies are kept locally (on different devices) and one copy is kept off-site. This method ensures that data is recoverable even in case of major problems.
Periodic testing of backups

Periodic testing of backups

1. Regular and periodic testing of backups:

One of the most important points in taking backups is to ensure the correctness and recovery of backups through regular testing. These tests should be performed periodically (monthly or weekly) to ensure that backups are properly stored and usable.
Testing backups includes restoring data from backups and checking their accuracy and completeness. This will help you to be sure of the efficiency of backups in case of emergency without worrying.

2. Follow-up of test results:

Recording the results of backup tests will help you to easily identify and fix possible problems. These results should include details of tests, problems identified, and corrective actions.

Use encryption to protect backups

1. Backup data encryption:

One of the best ways to protect backups is to use encryption. Data encryption ensures that sensitive and important information cannot be read and used even in case of unauthorized access to backups.
The use of strong encryption algorithms is recommended to provide the maximum level of security for the backup data

2. Management of encryption keys

Proper management of cryptographic keys is another key point. Encryption keys must be kept securely and changed periodically so that data security is not compromised.
Use cryptographic key management methods (such as using an HSM or cloud key management services) to increase security and ease of management.

Why is it necessary to backup a WordPress site?

Think of a WordPress backup as an opportunity to protect the hard work you’ve put into building and maintaining your site. With WordPress backed up, if an emergency occurs such as a security breach, hardware problem, or human error, you won’t be in a difficult situation. A WordPress backup ensures that your site data is accessible if you need to go into recovery mode to restart your website. Most WordPress hosting companies today offer some kind of website backup tool. However, many hosts, especially the cheaper ones, do not store these backups in a separate area from their main website.
This means that if your hosting goes down, you may lose access to your website and data temporarily or permanently. When you have a backup of your WordPress site, you can be sure that your hosting provider’s failure will not be lost. It is not meant to cause problems for your WordPress site. If something goes wrong, you can restore your website quickly so your business doesn’t lose revenue opportunities due to unnecessary downtime. Your site can experience all kinds of problems, from non-malicious issues like human error or bugs to destructive problems like hackers injecting malware into your site. When you’ve recently made a backup, the worst-case scenario for all of these problems is some downtime while the backup is being restored. Without a backup, the worst-case scenario could be the permanent loss of some or all of your site data.

How often should we backup our WordPress site?

How much does the content of your site change? It is different for every website. If you have a static website that doesn’t change often (for example, a portfolio site), you might want to back up your site data every week. In general, weekly backups should be the minimum for most WordPress sites. However, if you have a blog where you post several times a week and get a lot of user comments, weekly backups may not be enough. If you were to lose several days of data, this could mean that your site would lose several blog posts and comments. For some sites, even daily backups may not be enough. For example, if you have a WooCommerce site, you may receive several orders every day or even every hour. Since order data is an important part of your business, losing even one order can have negative effects. For these critical sites, you may want to implement 24-hour backup. With real-time backup, any changes to your site are backed up immediately, meaning you’ll never lose any data. Of course, it’s important to note that you usually have to pay more to access this real-time functionality, so you only want to make this investment if your site really needs it.

How does your business lose money without backup?

If your site is down for an extended period of time, you will lose money in three main ways, all of which are costly.

Loss of spiritual capital

The longer you’ve had your website, the more time and money you’ve invested in it. You have content, graphics, plugins, preferences, custom code, themes, scripts, etc. that you don’t want to lose.

Loss of financial capital

If your website is monetizing, you lose money when it’s down. But the financial losses do not end after the recovery of your site. If your site is down long enough, customers will start to wonder if it’s safe or if you’re down. If just one person decides to buy from a competitor while your site is down and enjoying their new experience, you’ve lost that customer’s lifetime revenue. This can be devastating, especially for small businesses, where each customer makes up a significant portion of their revenue. Additionally, while your site is down, your site cannot attract new leads. If you run social media, search engine, print, TV, or even billboard ads and they refer potential customers to your website, you will lose leads and money you invested in advertising. You will waste.

Time will not turn back

How long will it take for your site to return to its previous state? Days? weeks? All that time is completely and utterly wasted. You will never get it back. If your website is restored instantly, you can continue business as usual. Otherwise, every minute you spend rebuilding or restoring your site is not time spent growing or maintaining your business.

Why might you need a website backup?

Your site will be hacked
Cybercriminals deploy automated bots and malware that can spend all day finding and infiltrating vulnerable sites. They may want to collect your visitors’ personal information, steal your business data, or even demand a ransom to release important files. Even if you don’t store important data on your site, hackers can still do damage in other ways. But, if your main website content and files are backed up offsite, you can restore them quickly and minimize lost revenue and service interruptions to your customers.
Your site crashes after updating
Did you know that plugins and themes can conflict with each other and with the core of the site (especially WordPress sites)? After the update, a problem may occur that breaks or destroys part of your site – and you may not be able to access the admin control panel to fix it. By properly backing up your website, you can restore a previous version with one click and get back to business as usual.
You accidentally delete important files
You might be working on the backend of your site and delete an important file or screw up a PHP script. By backing up the website, this problem can be fixed before most people realize there is a problem.
You try a new idea that breaks your site
This is a very common scenario. You may be trying a new marketing idea that requires some changes to your site’s original design. Not sure if it will work, but the only way to find out is to try it. With a site backup ready at the click of a button, you can run that test without worry or fear. If something goes wrong, you can simply restore the previous version and try again.

To Conclude

As a result, backups should be considered an essential part of any business or website’s IT management and data security strategy. By implementing backup best practices and key tips, businesses can best protect their data and ensure their continuity and success. Failure to pay attention to this issue can lead to serious problems and even the destruction of the business. Therefore, backup should be considered as a basic priority in every organization. In today’s world where data plays a vital role in the performance and success of any type of business or website, regular and effective backup is of great importance. Without a proper backup strategy, businesses are exposed to serious risks such as loss of sensitive data, system failures, cyber-attacks, and problems caused by hardware and software failures.