The Online Shop Designer Blog

It is a fair question, but unfortunately one that is often surrounded by misplaced assumptions.

Is it the web host? Surely they do backups and can restore a site if there is any problem.

Is it the the web designer? Surely they can simply re-instate it from a copy of the original.

Is it the owner? Surely they would realise the value of their online investment.

Unfortunately, so often the bare truth is that it is none of the above. Quite simply, no one is taking the necessary steps to ensure that a website is protected from either accidental or intentional harm. Let’s look at these situations one at a time:

• Web Hosts are responsible for providing the servers (computers) that host a web site. In most common situations a server is configured to host multiple accounts, or websites, that each belong to different owners. To use an analogy, a server can be thought of as a building full of rooms that are rented out to different tenants. The web host’s responsibility is to maintain the server as a viable platform for all the users who share it. To guard against system failure (for example a hard disk crash or faulty power supply) web hosts back up the entire server and all its contents. In the event of such a failure, the server can then be repaired and all user accounts restored to full operation. The important thing to realise is that the web host’s backups are of the whole system, not individual user accounts. If they do a restore, then they must restore all user accounts. They will not do that for a problem that has occurred to just one account, because it would affect all users on the same server.
• A web designer will usually have a copy of the application files that are associated with a web site, however that only addresses a small part of the problem. The most valuable (and difficult to replace) part of a web site is the data that has been added since it was initially created. And in most cases that is stored in a database – not the file structure. The normal situation is that web designers have nothing to do with a web site’s data (content) after the site is handed over to the owner. So they do not have a copy of any content that has been added since that time.
• Which brings us to the owner. Clearly they have the responsibility for their web site’s content, and they would certainly like to think that it was secure, but unfortunately, from an owner’s perspective,  the steps to be taken to set up a reliable backup regime are often either too confusing, or just forgotten.

In the end small business owners must accept that it is their responsibility to secure their online data. In many cases the most efficient and effective way to do this is to establish a professional support agreement that looks after the entire process on a scheduled basis.

The Online Shop Designer (TOSD) can provide just such an arrangement. In fact it is all part of the service

If you have any further queries regarding Support Agreements or online backups please leave a comment or contact us.