In today's world, the one who possesses information defines all. After several disasters that took place not so long ago in the USA, the question of making timely and steadfast backups became of exceptional importance.
Naturally, the main things we seek for, while choosing appropriate web hosting company are the web hosting plans characteristics(amount of web space, traffic, hosted domains, sub-domains, email aliases etc.), fast support and their clear answers and of course Backups. Your data is too important to be lost; your business is too valuable to suffer from your hosting company's irresponsibility.
All earnest hosting companies provide their clients with daily backups. If it is really so, you may learn from reviews of this company, which you may find googling for "your host name reviews". You may also prove yourself asking your host support to back up some data of, for example, week standing. If you see that they don't make backups of your data as often as it was declared, you have two ways: make backups yourself as often as you need or just look for another web host. At the same time you'll need to have a serious approach to making back-ups if you have VPS, dedicated server or co-location. As for the shared and reseller hosting you will be probably more satisfied with your host' backup service.
Let's have a quick look at some general conception of data storage and backups. There are several up-to-date backup solutions. They are RPO (restore point objective) and RTO (restore time objective), encryption, uncompressible file types, and server backups. RPO defines the maximum time break after one backup needed to make the next one. Sometimes it's very important to make backups every few minutes or even seconds. RTO covers the length of time that is needed to restore data. They distinguish the following types of backups: conventional backups, disaster recovery and long-term archiving.
It is important to understand that backup is a process. As long as new data is being created or added and changes are being made, backups must be updated. The more important the data is stored the greater is the need for backing up these data. A backup is only as useful as its associated restore strategy. Storing the copy near the original is unwise, cause damage to your data and backup can be done at the same time.
So, you should always remember that the backup is vitally important for you. It's very essential that your hosting company makes the daily backups. You can also make back ups yourself, in order not to be dependent on your host, using the control panel of your account or shell access to the server. You can also use the third party backup services.
To feel yourself safely, use as many possibilities to backup your data as you can!
By Olga Elizarova (c), ©Copyright B10WH.com 2007
