Why hosting backups do not replace your own backup
Summary
From a hosting provider’s perspective, Manuel Schmitt explains why multi-level provider backups matter but customers still need external backups. Manuel describes his company’s backups as multi-level. According to him, partial restores are possible in about 95 percent of the cases requested.
Ideas
- Hosting backups are often aimed first at restoring complete systems.
- Fine-grained restores of individual emails, tables or points in time cause considerable effort.
- End of contract, operating errors, attacks and disputes over responsibility can make existing backups practically unreachable.
- The necessary backup frequency follows from the data loss that is economically tolerable.
Insights
- A backup is only as valuable as its access, granularity and tested recoverability.
- Technical redundancy does not resolve organisational conflicts over contracts and permissions.
Facts
- The article names accidental deletion, compromised websites and expired contracts as real risks of loss.
Recommendations
- Keep an independent copy outside the hosting account.
- Derive RPO and backup interval from the consequences of data loss.
- Regularly test restoring individual files, databases and complete systems.
References
Read the original article on Hostblogger
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