Backup Procedures

Just putting together my plan. I am going to be using several backup (on site and off site) plans combined to eliminate the possibility of data loss. I was wondering if I could get a list of what files and so forth I need to keep running copies of.

this is not a presales question, and this actually not even a dolphin question. but it appears you asked this question prior to the new organizational structure, so i will tell you what i would do in your case, of both offsite and onsite backup. this is also something to help you should you muck up the app while tweaking it.

SVN (subversion control) is the key to this. If you setup your site on subversion control, and all modifications are made from a working copy of your site rather than a live production environment, then the possibility of downtime is greatly reduced from a site performance standpoint.

So subversion is setup, which is a file repository, which means basically your site is backed up at that point. Now we take this a step further, and we setup rsync on a few different levels:

rsync your svn back to your live site

rsync your live site back to a backup solution, which could be just another machine there in the Datacenter or off-site somewhere. *HINT*, its best to backup within the same network, then back that up to an off-site or physically remove the data from one center to some other form of archive.

Ok i think that is enough information, and the question is what files you should backup? all of them, and the database. the database is a very important and key part of this whole application.

the other suggestion is not to tinker around on a live environment, setup a dev environment, that way if it breaks, you are not in a panic to get it back online. get your methodology of modifications to a certain set of rules, and dont sway from that set of rules. Now granted many of us, tend to toy on the live production environment, and that is absolutely playing russian roullette (sp).

Regards,

DosDawg