Backups - All about Backups

We have lots of different sorts of backups, read more to understand. The primary purpose of our backups is to ensure continuity of service in the event of a major catastrophy. We also keep some backups for the benefits of individual customers, however, if you need help restoring to an older version, a fee will apply

Online Backups

You have access to several backups. Anywhere you have the drag/dropeditor or word style tool bar editor, then you can click the blue backups button on the bottom right. This will give you access to previous versions of the page you are working on. We keep the current version, the last version, and the last version of any previous day.

File Backups

We backup all files daily. We keep a timed backup for at least 30 days, so even if you make several changes, we can get back to a specific version of the file. We may also store weekly backups for longer periods of time. There is a small fee for restoring an individual file or directory.

Database Backups

We backup our database twice daily. We keep 30 days history. However, it is difficult to restore just one customers website, so there is a fee for restoration to ensure we target just the data you need restored. This fee will cost less if you contact us on the same day you have an issue, eg before close of business.  

We also store snapshots of your data in a backups area, at random times. You can also request a manual backup. This area allows you to view differences, and to restore from specific tables back into your data.

Enquiry Backups

All enquiries sent via your website forms, are kept in the "view messages" area for 90 days for general members, or longer for authorised members. These enquiries are stored in the database so refer to the database backups. 

Email Backups

We take snapshots of the mail stored on our server every day, and every week, with daily restore options for a short period, and the weekly snapshots available for further back. 

If you use IMAP style connection to our mail server, then all your mail is kept on our server. Thus, if you accidently delete a folder or an email, it is possible to restore emails at a specific date. (Read further on about how timelines work)

If you use POP3 type connection, where emails are downloaded and not stored on the server, then our backup process typically only stores the new emails that were in the inbox at approximately 6am.

If you delete an email the same day it was sent, then it is unlikely it will be backed up. 

We do not store your outbound email, however, roundcube and other IMAP services may upload a copy of your outbound emails into a sent folder. So this is very use case specific. 

Emails in the trash folder are automatically deleted after 30 days. We tend not to backup emails in Sent or Spam folders, as they are volumous. 

So in summary, we do not store every single email that comes and goes. We only store a snapshot of your inbox and folders at a specified time of day, either daily or weekly, and we can only restore from that data. 

System Backups

Our whole infrastructure has redundancy built in, with multiple servers doing the same job, for both load balancing, and for the event of an error. Each server has multiple power supplies and multiple disk drives doing the same thing in case one has an error. We also have a completely separate infrastructure in another location, which is a live standby system, with data being maximum 1 day old. In the very unlikely event of a datacenter fire, we would have your website back up and running in production mode, as quickly as nameservers can be updated.

Do Your Own Customer Backups

You can backup your own website using the FTP option under manage files. There are 2 FTP spaces, one for secure and CMS files and the other for public files like your published website and photos.

You can also backup your important data like members and products using the CSV option.

Understanding Restoration Timelines and Dates

We will ask you to specify the date that you believe your data was deleted. Or when you know the data was good. 

For example, someone deleted your content on 1st April, so then you will need to ask for a backup from March. Because that is where the good data is. 

If content/data is often changed, then it might be hard to get a specific version of the file/data. We can only look at a snapshot date/time. 

If the data is transactional, or email, then we need to find a backup snapshot between the transaction date, and the deletion date. 

Of if it's restoration of email, then we need to know when the emails would have been received or sent, and the estimated deletion date. 

Older backups typically have a weekly snapshots, meaning we will do our best to get the data with a window of a week. We cannot see all the changes in the days between the week, we can only see the version at the start of the week, and the next version a week later. We cannot look at every single week. If you require this sort of service, then it will take more time and cost more. 

Provide us with some keywords (or guidance) so that we can inspect the data for the thing you are looking for. Otherwise it takes more time to put that data back in the database to only discover it was not what you wanted.  

Understanding Restoration Targeting

Often customers ask us to restore their website to a specific point in time. However, they might have received orders, added customers etc. So it would not be desireable to delete all that new transactional data when restoring the website. Hence, it is good to be really clear about what aspects you are wanting to restore.  Some typical targets might be

• Website design
• Images / Files
• Website content (on a specific page/s) 
• Page layout change
• Transactional data
• Customer data
• Product data
• etc

Restoration Options ( Merge / Replace / Target)

• We can restore from an old email snapshot into your live email account, either by merging the files/folders, or by creating new folders for the specific emails you want restored. So restoration of email won't destroy want you currently have 
• Files / images / documents can be merged with your existing files. This is good if you deleted an images folder or a documents folder, or specific files in there. It will not delete any of the new files you have.. 
• If you specifically want new data deleted and everything replaced with an old snapshot, please be clear about that. 
• Consider that sometimes databases and files might get out of sync. If you restore product data, then the product images might still be deleted. The product images are files. Whereas the product data is from the database. Restoring one and not the other won't achieve a perfect result.
• It's always ideal to ask for a very targed restoration, see previous section on targeting... This way we do the least damage to your existing website, when we attempt to restore ghosts of the past.