5 Step Web Hosting Disaster Recovery Plan

In light of a recent web hosting snafu at MediaTemple, I wanted to share 5 things you can do to recover from a web hosting disaster. Most of these require some time to set up and your vigilance. But if followed, you can rebound from a disaster in a short amount of time.

1. Create your disaster recovery plan. The easiest part of a disaster recovery plan is to actually have a plan.This plan should include:

• A list of the sites you maintain
• A list of user names and passwords for your sites
• The databases names, server addresses or IP, user names and passwords, that are used for your list of sites
• FTP user names and passwords for each of your sites
• Your web hosts tech support number
• Have a backup web host decided in case for some reason you need to move quickly
• Know how to get into your domain registrar so you can change Name Servers if needed
• Name, number, email of a web professional that may be able to help restore your systems if needed

I recommend having it on paper, and online. Use Google Docs if you don’t have a word processor.

2. Create an automated backup of your site. This one step is vital to a disaster recovery plan. If you don’t have a complete backup, database and disk files, recovery is not in the cards. There are plenty of options available, and most hosting companies provide a backup mechanism. Automate if you can. At the very least complete a manual backup.

A word of caution here. Make sure you understand what your web host will and won’t back up for you. I found out the hard way when a previous host revealed they hadn’t been backing up my sites because I had to many files. Defeats the purpose of backing up.

3. Test your backups as least once a week. When you get your backups, whether they are in archived format or not, make sure the files are readable and can be use if and when the time comes. This is an advanced procedure, the longer between tests put you at greater risk for having a problem. For example, if for some reason you are unable to open the archives that hold your database SQL files, you would not be able to restore them again. This could be disastrous.

4. Put backups in multiple locations. If you keep all of your backups on the web server your sites are on, and it goes down, how will you get to your backups? I recommend you keep them in several locations.

• GMail is a great storage place for backups. Create a new account just to hold your backups.
• Copy your backups to a local hard drive.
• Keep a copy on another web site or service like Amazon S3.

5. At least once a month practice a recovery. If you run a critical web site, or you host sites for others, I would highly recommend you practice a complete recovery at least once a month, at the very least once a quarter. Using your plan to recover from you local backups, knowing how the restore process works with a database and FTP program to move files is important. Don’t wait until the something has happened just to find out you don’t have everything.

Technology fails. People fail. Both of these things can cost you time and money. You can never be too prepared. It doesn’t take much to get your plan in place. I’m sure there is more you can do, so by all means, add that to your plan. What else would you recommend?