Under the Desktop: Take Charge of Your Web Site
Comedians of the 1940s, when faced with a test of courage, would often ask the existential question: Am I a man, or a mouse? The answer was usually the latter. Following last month’s column on the perils of Web hosting, a number of readers shared their own sob stories and posed some additional questions. At the top of the list: Who’s responsible for backing up and archiving a site’s files? And is there an industry standard for an ISP to back up Web sites it is hosting?
The question isn’t some academic exercise; instead, the answer could be critical to your customers’ content as well as to your future good standing with them. If you rely on your Internet service provider (ISP) as your file archivist, you may be in trouble when your client asks you to move a site to a new hosting service, or to bring back a different version of a page. The ISP may not have the site version or specific page you’re looking for.
According to Bill Woodcock, network architect at Zocolo, a Berkeley, Calif., Internet services provider, companies that host Web sites are not held to a standard for backing up data. “There’s no promise, but in the real world we would be out of business if we didn’t back up people’s data,” Woodcock said. While no ISP or hosting service will take responsibility for your data, most have some sort of backup plan. “People who don’t will go out of business shortly, it’s self-correcting stupidity,” he said.
That Web hosts generally do backup data will be no consolation to you if your site falls victum to one that doesn’t, however, and the frequency of backups can also be an issue. In short, Woodcock warned that customers of Web-hosting services should take responsibility for their remote data just as they would files on their local machines and servers. And if you’re depending on a Web host for any level of backup, make sure to check the fine print of its service agreement and talk to the Web host about file recovery and backup arrangements before any emergency arises.
Pain and No Gain
Several readers expressed frustration with the overall lack of communication from their ISPs and support departments regarding backups and archiving.
“I want the ISP to lay out [in plain language] exactly what their responsibilities are,” said Eleanor Culling, a freelance Web designer and site manager based in Leavenworth, Wash. “Nobody has ever done that. Saying: ‘Our responsibilities are this and such.’ Never.”
She also bemoaned the lack of timely notification about actions that might affect the availability of her customer’s sites. “If they’re going to do an upgrade on the server, I expect to get a message about it beforehand. I don’t want to find it out myself,” Culling said.
Her ISP last week sent customers a news flash warning that the company wouldn’t offer technical support over the Labor Day Weekend. While perhaps a step in the right direction, the message offered her no comfort.
Culling is still smarting from a February server outage at her previous hosting service. The former musician, photographer, and small-business owner designs and handles sites for a number of local clients in the vacation industry in rural Washington. After the usual round of complaining and consulting with technical support about the outage and any potential recovery of data from backups, Culling was informed her expectations were too high.
“The fellow said, ‘It’s obvious that you can’t be satisfied with any level of service.’ Now, I wasn’t asking for anything out of the ordinary. I had discovered that they were backing up the Cobalt server monthly — that was absolutely ridiculous,” Culling said.
Still, Culling admitted that her work process exacerbated her ability to recover from the outage. The latest versions of her clients’ sites were on the server, and she didn’t have a backup copy. Culling said she often makes changes directly to the code on the remote server and then backs things up to her local machines. This is easier for her and her clients, because they have slow dialup accounts (broadband has yet to make its way to her area). After making the changes to the site, clients can see the differences immediately. And the slow backup to Zip cartridges can happen later at a more convenient time.
However, Culling was making changes at a busy pace and put off backups for a couple of days. This situation left the only correct copy of the sites on the hosting servers. Then the server’s hard drive crashed.
A traditional Web publishing approach with version control would provide more security, I suggested. Any changes should be made to a local version of the site and then pages uploaded to the hosting service. Backups of local files are easier and faster, so there’s more chance for redundancy and archive. This method would be more time-consuming and tougher on clients, however, given the slow connection speeds. Still, a dead server at the hosting service was a disaster, and losing the latest versions of her customers’ sites compounded a customer relations nightmare. It meant a lot of extra work. “I’ve paid for that dearly,” Culling said.
Yet, all but one of Culling’s clients were very forgiving — a testimony to her excellent service history. Some even sent flowers, she reported.
Hello? Is Anybody There?
Woodcock warned Web pros that forthcoming changes in Web hosting will make it even more important for Web masters to improve their practices regarding backups and archives.
According to Woodcock, the model of user interaction with Internet resources is changing. People want to sock things away and have them accessible in real time. Hard drives have kept pace with the change, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for ISPs to keep backing up their customers’ ever-growing collection of files. “ISPs just can’t back it all up,” he said.
Instead, ISPs will make greater use of “gigantic” RAID systems to improve reliability. Backups will then grow few and far between. “A customer may delete something and then come to us for help and soon we will be at the point where we will say ‘no.’ There won’t be a copy for the last week,” Woodcock said. “Availability will be longer for a ton of junk.”
With this trend in mind, creative professionals must become meticulous with their work habits, keeping redundant copies of files and working on copies. Take a look at my previous column on backup, which describes a quick-and-dirty work methodology that incorporates redundancy and the maintenance of multiple versions. It’s just as applicable to a site’s combination of local and remote files, with the benefit that the file sizes are smaller when compared with documents headed for hardcopy.
Furthermore, I advise archiving all the work you do on a site, keeping a complete change history. If a file is changed on a site, there will be no going back, unless the site designer or Web master has kept proper backups and archives.
Content pros would do well to heed the wisdom of the medieval rabbi known as Ibn Zabara: “Before trouble comes, obtain advice; after it comes, advice is useless.” The same will hold true for your files without proper version control.
