Disaster Recovery

Business Continuity

Many businesses don't get a lot of time to plan for when things go wrong. With all of the challenges of modern retail, the pressures of simply trying to turn a profit can drive everything else to the back of the queue. We tend to have insurance for the big things like fire and theft, but the little ones can be missed; what happens if an employee accidentally deletes a pricelist, or a server fails?

You need to know that you have someone on your side that'll get it sorted.

That's why we wanted to take the time to explore how we secure and protect our clients' data, what we do to ensure business resilience, and what happens if it all goes wrong. We're going to be talking all about hosting solutions, server uptime and our disaster recovery strategies.

Hosting

Hosting is a crucial part of any IT infrastructure. For IXO Commerce, talking about hosting is to talk about where data is stored, how it is accessed and what's done to secure that data, and to secure server uptime. 

It's about managing risk, and we're pretty good at it.

There are a lot of simple 'best practice' measures that we routinely take; encrypted data, secure passwords, 2 Factor Authentication, and so on, but these measures aren't enough on their own. All of our servers are closely monitored 24 hours a day to identify and locate problems as soon as possible; our experienced team are always quick to resolve any issues. 

We are extremely strict not only about the software that gets installed on those servers, but also to how our clients are hosted. It is absolutely essential that load is spread appropriately, which is why we mandate that clients of a certain size must have a dedicated server. It's simply better for them and their site speeds, their security, their uptime. It's also better for everyone else; if you have one heavy user on a shared server, other clients could be affected. 

As with so much of what Iconography does well, we don't take a one size fits all approach. 

What works for one client may not work for another; that's why we offer a wide variety of hosting solutions. Shared hosting is perfectly suitable for many of our clients, but for others, dedicated servers are better. Cloud hosting is increasingly popular, but for some, physical servers are a better solution. We provide a service which tailors to individual needs without compromising on security or stability. 

Data Integrity

Even when we have a reliable server, it's crucial to understand how your data is protected and secured. Access should be limited, and personal data should be encrypted; what you're storing should be restricted to the essentials.*

We retain multiple backups of every system we manage; all of that data is protected, of course, but this allows for straightforward data recovery. Copies of your data will be stored on the server, but we also retain local copies on physical hard drives; in the unlikely event of your server being unavailable, Iconography can use those local backups to restore your data.

*This is actually a major benefit of Unified Commerce - with a single software solution managing your retail operations, you don't have to have customer records in lots of different platforms, e.g. eCommerce, Sales Order Management, CRM, pads of paper and post it notes, etc.

Disaster Recovery

Sometimes things go wrong. Malicious actors, catastrophic server failure or global problem? You need an answer.

The thing is, it's much more likely to be something simple. 

Small problems happen all the time, and they're often so minor that planning is almost impossible. It can be all to easy to delete a product range, add a payment to the wrong order, or make mistake when uploading a product file. Human error is the simplest and most costly problem in IT. 

We combat it with training and support, as well as careful logging of who has done what, and when (which then gives clear opportunities for further training). Sadly though, even when you catch a problem, if it's already happened, we need a way to fix it - we need disaster recovery.

Retrieving and Restoring Data

Iconography collect and store regular snapshots of the system  and database. All backups are immediately accessible within their locations, subject to external factors, and we store copies of those backups remotely and locally.

That means that in the vast majority of instances, we can simply grab the most recent backup, extract the required data, and copy that over the live; business as usual within a few hours. 

Server Problems

These tend to be a bit more serious, and in the most severe circumstances, access to a server may no longer be possible. The only answer is to source a replacement. By design, IXO Commerce uses common technologies like PHP and MySQL, which makes setting up a new server a quick and simple process. Physical servers may have a small lead time due to the need to source parts, but this delay is non-existent for those using our Cloud Hosting package.

Often, the longest delay actually comes in restoring the backup, and uploading your data to the new server; it can take time to upload 100GB of data!