Comments on: Preparing for a Small Business Disaster http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html Angie's Copywriting - Effective copy, great results. Simple Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:52:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: melnelson http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-1278 melnelson Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:11:41 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-1278 Loved your post Charles (thanks Angie for putting it here) but worse things can and do happen to small business owners. <br><br>I have a small hosting business as a sideline but it brings in enough to make a difference, so when suddenly my inbox started filling up with emails from frantic customers whose sites had disappeared, I did what comes naturally I called the data center and asked !@#$%^ is going on.<br><br>"Minor problem" they said "Raid controller problem, we'll have them all back up in an hour"<br>Well the hour turned into five hours and that turned into a day and calls to the DC were useless, they were in total panic.<br><br>Seems that they had a redundant raid sysetem set up but they also had an automated backup system. But the failure was in the Raid controller card hence a total failure. <br>Worse still when the raid system went back online the first thing teh automated backup system did was to backup all the empty sites so that when it came time to restore them there was nothing to restore.<br><br>Long story short - I had to restore 59 sites from my local resources and from the programmers who had built them and in 11 cases build 11 very large sites from scratch.<br><br>No profit this year and quite a few unhappy customers.<br><br>So now I do my own daily backups of all the sites on my servers, keeping five backups of each on a dedicated hard drive, which is in turn backed up weekly to DVDs, which I put into a fireproof container.<br><br>If you have Cpanel on your site, you can do your own backups very easily with a little program called Backup Smart. Loved your post Charles (thanks Angie for putting it here) but worse things can and do happen to small business owners.

I have a small hosting business as a sideline but it brings in enough to make a difference, so when suddenly my inbox started filling up with emails from frantic customers whose sites had disappeared, I did what comes naturally I called the data center and asked !@#$%^ is going on.

“Minor problem” they said “Raid controller problem, we'll have them all back up in an hour”
Well the hour turned into five hours and that turned into a day and calls to the DC were useless, they were in total panic.

Seems that they had a redundant raid sysetem set up but they also had an automated backup system. But the failure was in the Raid controller card hence a total failure.
Worse still when the raid system went back online the first thing teh automated backup system did was to backup all the empty sites so that when it came time to restore them there was nothing to restore.

Long story short – I had to restore 59 sites from my local resources and from the programmers who had built them and in 11 cases build 11 very large sites from scratch.

No profit this year and quite a few unhappy customers.

So now I do my own daily backups of all the sites on my servers, keeping five backups of each on a dedicated hard drive, which is in turn backed up weekly to DVDs, which I put into a fireproof container.

If you have Cpanel on your site, you can do your own backups very easily with a little program called Backup Smart.

]]> By: Angie H http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-809 Angie H Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:30:17 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-809 <a href='#comment-800' rel="nofollow">@Danielle</a> - Oh dear! That's not good. I hope you got it going again. That is an awful lot of work to lose! @Danielle – Oh dear! That’s not good. I hope you got it going again. That is an awful lot of work to lose!

]]> By: Danielle http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-800 Danielle Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:39:13 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-800 This just happened to me! My first and oldest blog - over three years old! - is now broken. And am I prepared? No. I'm still trying to figure out how to fix the bloody thing! This just happened to me! My first and oldest blog – over three years old! – is now broken. And am I prepared? No. I’m still trying to figure out how to fix the bloody thing!

]]> By: Angie H http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-783 Angie H Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:15:23 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-783 Thanks John! Been a little absent from the forums this week, but I hope to get back there this week. Got hit with a few unexpected things last week. All the best, Angie Thanks John!

Been a little absent from the forums this week, but I hope to get back there this week. Got hit with a few unexpected things last week.

All the best,

Angie

]]> By: Angie H http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-782 Angie H Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:14:18 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-782 I absolutely agree with you Lee. My trouble is remembering to do it on a regular basis :) Always good to hear from you! Angie I absolutely agree with you Lee. My trouble is remembering to do it on a regular basis :)

Always good to hear from you!

Angie

]]> By: LGR http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-778 LGR Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:58:04 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-778 Most hosts allow you to create complete backups that include the databases, files, users, and email etc. Creating and downloading that backup should be a webmsters primary job. Site goes down, take the complete backup/move file open a new account at another host, restore your complete backup/move file, change your nameservers to point to the new host. That puts you back up and running in less than a day. All cPanel hosts I have dealt with allow you to create that complete backup/move file, I am sure there must be a Plesk and other web host control panel options that do similar things. Backup, backup, backup! <abbr><em>LGR’s last blog post..<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LGRBlog/~3/wXGC4diu5aI/wordpress-28-released.html" rel="nofollow">WordPress 2.8 Released</a></abbr></em> Most hosts allow you to create complete backups that include the databases, files, users, and email etc. Creating and downloading that backup should be a webmsters primary job. Site goes down, take the complete backup/move file open a new account at another host, restore your complete backup/move file, change your nameservers to point to the new host. That puts you back up and running in less than a day. All cPanel hosts I have dealt with allow you to create that complete backup/move file, I am sure there must be a Plesk and other web host control panel options that do similar things.

Backup, backup, backup!

LGR’s last blog post..WordPress 2.8 Released

]]> By: John Melanson http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-760 John Melanson Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:03:14 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-760 Angie, I just wanted to stop by and say how nice it was to "e-meet" you today. I look forward to sharing input with you. Be well, ~John <abbr><em>John Melanson’s last blog post..<a href="http://www.localbizbuilders.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6043&goto=newpost" rel="nofollow">What Happens To Your Business If You Die?</a></abbr></em> Angie,

I just wanted to stop by and say how nice it was to “e-meet” you today. I look forward to sharing input with you.

Be well,

~John

John Melanson’s last blog post..What Happens To Your Business If You Die?

]]> By: Chuck Bartok http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-726 Chuck Bartok Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:24:34 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-726 Fantastic presentation about Preparedness.. Acting as a Business person is always beneficial. Seems tragic so many On-liners don't Realize the Basic Foundations needed to assure continued success in any Business. Based on recent headlines neither do many Off-liners ~smile~ Beside operating with a well designed Business plan, it is important to develop Strong Mastermind Alliances <abbr><em>Chuck Bartok’s last blog post..<a href="http://th2w.blogspot.com/2009/05/walnut-farming-network-marketing.html" rel="nofollow">Walnut Farming, Network Marketing, Growing Your Business Re-visited</a></abbr></em> Fantastic presentation about Preparedness..
Acting as a Business person is always
beneficial.

Seems tragic so many
On-liners don’t Realize the Basic Foundations
needed to assure continued success in any Business.

Based on recent headlines neither do many
Off-liners ~smile~

Beside operating with a well designed Business plan,
it is important to develop Strong Mastermind Alliances

Chuck Bartok’s last blog post..Walnut Farming, Network Marketing, Growing Your Business Re-visited

]]> By: Twitted by robmcguire http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-714 Twitted by robmcguire Thu, 28 May 2009 13:48:48 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-714 [...] This post was Twitted by robmcguire - Real-url.org [...]Reply - Quote P.S. - Sorry, forgot to tell you great post! [...] This post was Twitted by robmcguire – Real-url.org [...]Reply – Quote
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!

]]> By: Twitted by robmcguire http://www.angiescopywriting.com/business/webmaster-disaster-preparedness-small-business.html/comment-page-1#comment-712 Twitted by robmcguire Wed, 27 May 2009 20:42:17 +0000 http://www.angiescopywriting.com/?p=352#comment-712 [...] This post was Twitted by robmcguire - Real-url.org [...] [...] This post was Twitted by robmcguire – Real-url.org [...]

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