January 5 2023

How should data retention work in Hosting services?

For how many days would it be better to have backups in a Hosting service? Let's examine the case of Aruba Hosting.

Often we only realize that we have infected a website with trojans, malware or hacker attacks days, weeks or months after the actual infection. This can happen for several reasons.

First, the warning signs may be subtle or difficult to detect. For example, a trojan may be designed to operate stealthily, i.e. without attracting the attention of the user or the site owner. This way, the trojan can remain active for a long time without being detected.

In addition, the website may have been infected with very sophisticated malware or hacker attacks that exploit unknown or hard-to-detect vulnerabilities. In these cases, even the most advanced security systems can be fooled and the infection can go unnoticed for a long period of time.

Finally, it is important to consider that the website may have been infected by malware or hacker attacks aimed at acquiring sensitive data or compromising other resources. In these cases, the attackers' goal may be to stay “hidden” for as long as possible in order to gather as much information as possible or to cause maximum damage.

In general, it is important to always pay close attention to the security of your website and take the appropriate protective measures to prevent infection by Trojans, malware or hacker attacks. In particular, WordPress installations can be particularly vulnerable to these types of threats, so it is important to ensure that you always have the latest version of the software and that you use reliable security plugins, as well as that you have the right backup and disaster technology and policy recovery.

Backup

Backup is an essential practice for the security and data protection of a website or company. A backup on a hosting is a very common solution to create safety copies of data, in order to be able to recover them in case of loss or damage. In this article, we will explain why it is important to make a backup on a hosting and how to choose the best solution for your needs.

First, it's important to back up your data because no system is completely immune to problems or malfunctions. Even if you use a reliable hosting system and take all the necessary precautions, there can still be a risk of losing data due to hardware, software or other problems. For example, it may happen that the server where the data is hosted suffers a breakdown or that the website is attacked by a hacker. In these cases, without a backup, you risk losing all your important data and having to start from scratch, which can cost you a lot of time and money.

A backup on a hosting is an effective solution to protect your data in case of emergency. This way, you can keep a copy of your data in a safe place that you can access at any time. There are different types of hosting that offer the backup service such as shared hosting providers, dedicated hosting providers or cloud hosting providers. Each of these types of hosting has its pros and cons; therefore, it is important to carefully evaluate which solution is best suited to your needs.

Backup data retention.

Data retention of backups is the period of time the backup data is retained. Short data retention means that the backup data is retained for a shorter period of time, while long data retention means that the backup data is retained for a longer period of time.

The pros of short-term data retention are mainly related to saving space on storage media and the lower cost of backup services. Also, short data retention may be easier to manage, as there is less data to manage and the recovery process is simpler.

calendar backup data retention

The cons of short-term data retention are related to the risk of losing important data. If the backup data is deleted too soon, it may be difficult to recover it if the original data is lost. Also, short data retention may not be sufficient to meet any regulatory or compliance requirements that require data to be retained for a longer period of time.

In general, the choice of backup data retention duration depends on the specific needs of each company or organization. It is important to carefully evaluate your needs and establish a data retention that is adequate to ensure data security without being too expensive in terms of storage space or costs.

However, thanks to incremental archiving, diffing and deduplication, today it is no longer so expensive in terms of space to generate backups with data retention of months.

Incremental backup, deduplication for light and efficient data retention.

The advantages of an incremental backup over a full one are numerous. First, an incremental backup takes less time to run, since it only backs up files that have changed or been added since the last backup. It also requires less storage space, as not all files are backed up again, only those that have changed.

Deduplication is another technique that can be used to achieve lightweight and efficient data retention. Deduplication is the elimination of file duplicates within backups, so that multiple copies of the same file are not stored. For example, if you back up a shared folder that has many identical files, deduplication will delete all duplicate copies and keep only one, thus reducing the storage space needed.

Furthermore, deduplication can also be used to reduce backup times, as there is no need to copy files that already exist in the archive. This can be especially useful in environments with large amounts of data, where backup time could be significantly reduced using deduplication.

In summary, both incremental backup and deduplication are techniques that can be used to achieve lighter and more efficient data retention, reducing backup times and the required storage space.

The case of Aruba Hosting Backups and very low data retention.

Aruba Hosting Backups offer both a weekly and a daily backup, but these may not be sufficient as data retention in some cases, such as the one hypothesized above in which the user notices a compromise beyond the week of restore offered by the Aruba backup. In fact, if you want to restore a backup that dates back more than a week, you won't be able to use the weekly or daily backups provided by Aruba Hosting.

Restore Backup Aruba

Therefore, if you need more extensive data retention on Aruba, it might be advisable to evaluate the use of third-party backup plugins, in addition to the weekly and daily backups offered by Aruba Hosting. In this way, it will be possible to have greater security and flexibility in restoring backups, regardless of when they were performed.

However, backups made with WordPress plugins can be very heavy in terms of load, both for the system and for the hosting server. WordPress backup plugins usually make a copy of all files on the site, including extension and theme files, as well as database data. This can cause a significant increase in the load on the server, especially if the site is particularly large or complex.

Furthermore, WordPress backup plugins can be very resource intensive, as they have to deal with copying a large amount of files and data. This can cause site slowdowns and disruptions during the backup process, making it less efficient in terms of speed.

For these reasons, many hosting services may not tolerate the use of WordPress backup plugins, as they can cause a significant load on the servers and interfere with site performance.

Tips for a good backup and good data retention.

If you are looking for a hosting provider with a long enough backup retention, I recommend opting for one that offers at least 60 days of retention like in Managed Server. This will allow you to have a fairly recent backup available in case of an emergency, such as data loss due to hacker attacks or server malfunctions.

A 60-day old backup will ensure that you can restore your site to a previous state, without losing too much data or important information. Furthermore, you can also take advantage of this option to test new features or changes to your site, without risking losing the work done up to that moment.

 

Do you have doubts? Don't know where to start? Contact us!

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INFORMATION

Managed Server Srl is a leading Italian player in providing advanced GNU/Linux system solutions oriented towards high performance. With a low-cost and predictable subscription model, we ensure that our customers have access to advanced technologies in hosting, dedicated servers and cloud services. In addition to this, we offer systems consultancy on Linux systems and specialized maintenance in DBMS, IT Security, Cloud and much more. We stand out for our expertise in hosting leading Open Source CMS such as WordPress, WooCommerce, Drupal, Prestashop, Joomla, OpenCart and Magento, supported by a high-level support and consultancy service suitable for Public Administration, SMEs and any size.

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