Easy project backups for web developers
We’ve talked about our development workflow. I wanted to discuss actionable backup strategies that are baked into the workflow.
It’s important that setting up backups be made part of the development process. Since the actual backup is a background process — it is much more likely that it will be done.
Our workflow has three environments.
*local
*staging
*production
Our local projects are all backed up on a remote Git repository. We use Beanstalkapp for projects that are in use and Bitbucket as the final resting place for a project — since Bitbucket gives unlimited repositories in every plan. We usually create a separate repository for large assets like photoshop files and raw images.
Staging environment backups are usually not taken — since staging sites are a transitional space.
Production environment backups are usually done based on the platform used.
For WordPress project, we suggest WPEngine to most of our clients who can afford it. WPEngine has daily file and database backups baked into each plan. That’s saved our bacon on more than one occasion. For our WordPress clients not on WPEngine, we use VaultPress which also does daily backups of the entire WordPress website.
We’ve recently been working with AngularJS frontend web and mobile apps powered by Firebase databases. We use the blaze plan for daily backups. The major pro with the blaze plan is that since it is a “Pay as you go” type of plan we usually end up paying less than a dollar for daily backups of decently sized databases.
Fun fact — World backup day is one day before April Fool’s day.
