What happens to your website if your host catches on fire?
This morning I read an article about a fire in a data center in Europe. What struck me as odd, honestly it made me mad, was a quote from one of the companies.
Update:
We’ve confirmed a total loss of the affected EU servers during the OVH data centre fire. We’re now exploring replacing the affected servers.Data will be unable to be restored.
— Rust (@playrust) March 10, 2021
Ok, so if you don’t know, my background is in IT support, which included backups and keeping them safe. So in that moment I was mad about the fact that this company did not have a backup plan that included remote backups.
Then I had a moment of pause and a little bit of fear. Is my server being backed up? What happens if there is a fire in the data center for my server, or even the hosting servers of my clients?
I don’t know why I do this to myself (you know, the old self induced panic), but I had that very scary thought for a moment of, “what would happen in the case of a fire????”
You ever have one of those moments where you are out having a good time. Then out of no where this thought creeps into your brain, “Did I leave the stove/iron/toaster/microwave/candle on at the house?”
THAT is exactly the feeling I had because I became worried that maybe I had missed something.
So I sat for a moment and retraced my backup strategy.
Step 1: Backup locally nightly
Step 2: Send the backup to an offsite data storage location
Step 3: Synchronize to my personal backup server
Step 4: Send an email for any failed backups
Step 5: Check daily for alerts of failed backups
In this setup I have 2 different locations for backups, which is more than enough. Yet, after seeing this data center fire it makes me want to be more cautious and I will be adding a 3rd backup location.
We have a thought for you… 🙁 pic.twitter.com/hwYxCyXn55
— Info Trafic Alsace (@ITA6768) March 10, 2021
So now I ask you, the reader, this question again….
What happens to your website if host catches on fire? This is THE question that you need to ask yourself today. If you don’t know the answer, ask your web person. If they don’t know the answer please call or email me.
Article I read: Article from SEJ
Original Release: https://status.us.ovhcloud.com/pages/incident/59dd23da8827c804746f1664/60483ceb5aef05052e955892
Plugins I use that were affected: WP Rocket & Imagify
Number of my clients with lost data: 0
TL;DR – A web host caught on fire, I freaked out. I worried about backups of my site and each of my clients. Realized I had a solid plan. Now I question everyone reading this if they have a backup plan and what it is. If no backup plan then call/email me.
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