| Description: |
Strategy, policy, and documented procedures are needed for backing up our important data,
configurations, and other system aspects.
This will reduce the risk of extended disaster recovery periods,
should something go wrong with any of our technology.
At the time of writing, backups are ad-hoc and manual.
What should be backed up?
Here's an initial attempt to list what things will need backing up.
It's probably not complete.
-
Website:
-
Applications:
- Source code for building the website's software.
- Run-time settings and other application configuration.
- Documentation for the projects.
-
Content database:
- Pages,
- Articles,
- Components,
- Other textual material,
- Images,
- Downloadable documents.
-
System configuration:
- Host machine and operating system configuration.
- Web server configuration.
- Security aspects.
-
Shop:
-
Email messages:
Currently, not all email messages are saved by the Ionos hosting company.
Some are simply forwarded to our personal email addresses.
I suspect many of us do not back those up.
A better solution might be to have a backed up mailbox for all messages,
in addition to any forwarding that takes place.
This would need to include attachments as well as the messages themselves.
-
Membership database:
- Regular backups to avoid data loss after errors or other incidents.
- Need to be secure, so as to comply with data protection and privacy policies.
-
Competitions information:
- Entries from competitors.
- Correspondence with regard to the above.
- Payment records.
-
Publications:
Any non-physical media, such as:
- Editions of Link magazine.
- Editions of the newsletter.
- Any important source material for the above.
-
Recordings of meetings and other events:
- Zoom recordings.
- Videos of events.
-
Other:
- Details for domain names.
How should backups be done?
Ideally, as much automation as possible should be employed.
Humans are likely to forget to do their backups.
How often should backups be done?
This may depend on the material to be saved, on a case by case basis.
Some things are changing more frequently than others.
|