Joomla Backup & Disaster Recovery using the Amazon S3 Cloud

Details

Created on Friday, 17 December 2010 00:00

Back up your Web site because you never know when your hosting service may fail or if a hacker has found a hole in your site and decides to play games. Poof, gone, it happened recently to a law firm that contacted us about their Joomla website that had been hacked and showed some abnormal pages on their domain and it can happen to you!

But, is backing up on your hosting server enough?

We've all been there, we decide to backup by using the backup software or service in our hosting control panel. We sit back, take a sigh of relief and pat ourselves on the back for job well done. But then there's a problem, your website goes down and it looks like your hosts backups are not there, corrupt and your hosting provider can't help... your stumped!

What should I do?

You should do it right from the beginning - backup away from your website hosting server, somewhere else that is secure and obtainable if the worse happens.

So what's the plan for worst case scenarios?

• Put in place a backup solution that lets you sleep at night.
• Ensure easy access to the website backup files.
• Ensure you have an easy way of reinstalling a backup & restoring your website.

One solution that we use & is advocated by many Joomla supremo's is by using a great component called Akeeba Backup, in conjunction with the Amazon Cloud. It allows you to:

• Take your own Joomla backups and store them on the Amazon S3 Cloud storage service.
• Its quick, cheap & reliable.

Why should you use the 'cloud' for backups?

Conceptually, there is a large difference between protecting data, and providing disaster recovery. Conventional data backup and recovery applications typically backup on the same server or on a server in the same location. But have you ever heard of a house burning down? Have you or ever heard of a website or server being hacked & being totally unrecoverable? Disaster recovery involves much more than simply restoring a backup from the same server. Using the 'cloud' ensures that your backups are protected from natural and human disasters which is important, which requires off-site storage of data. Years ago, you would of had a 'man in a van' pick up your data on a tape & take it off-site to another location, its just the same - but no van driver is needed these days.

Resources:

http://www.akeebabackup.com
Akeeba Backup is an open-source backup component for the Joomla CMS, quite a bit different than its competition. Its mission is simple: create a site backup that can be restored on any Joomla!-capable server. It creates a backup archive which contains all the files, a database snapshot and a restoration script. The backup and restore process is AJAX powered, designed to avoid server time-outs, even with multi-gigabyte sites!

http://aws.amazon.com/s3
The Amazon cloud provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives a user access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

If you would like more information on backing up your website or how to implement a secure/reliable backup yourself please contact us.