A backup you have never restored is not a backup

September is the last quiet month before peak season. The hosting panel shows a green check that says the backup ran last night. What it does not say is whether that copy brings back the site, the database, and the images — or how long it takes.

A backup is a promise until it is restored. On managed hosting the test is part of the service: the copy is brought up in a separate environment and the time is measured. If there is a store, you also check what happens to orders placed between the copy and the outage; that is where it meets e-commerce.

Three questions for this week

• Where does the copy live? If it sits on the same server as the site, it goes down with it.
• How much do you lose? A daily copy means up to 24 hours of orders and form submissions.
• Who restores, and how fast? A name and a number, not “the provider.”

The test takes an afternoon. Doing it in September costs that. Finding out in November that the copy was empty costs the season.

Nobody wants backups. Everybody wants a restore.

If you do not know when the last test restore was, write to us. We start there.