Why does e-commerce need a backup?

A backup — a copy of the code — is required to keep the site running. Continuity is especially important from an e-commerce point of view: every hour of store downtime can directly stop us from generating revenue. A mundane reason like physical disk damage on the server is one of the reasons regular backups are mandatory. But making backups serves many more purposes:

the option to create alternate environments where you can comfortably develop different features in isolation and test changes without touching the live store (although Ansible auto-installers or Docker-based solutions are much better suited for that),

daily backup cycles let us travel back in time to any point — e.g. when a hard-to-identify problem appeared on our site, or it was discovered after enough time had passed that the consequences are hard to fix,

running the backup service to the right standards is also today one of the GDPR (RODO) requirements.

Having a backup shouldn't lull our vigilance. Just having backups doesn't mean we're properly protected against an outage. Without periodic tests that involve recovering the service via the so-called disaster recovery procedure, it may turn out that copies sitting on backup servers are worth nothing to us.

If you want to read more on how to ensure the stability of an online store, especially during Black Friday or pre-holiday shopping, do read the article on our blog.