[Zope-CMF] backup strategies

[sean.upton@uniontrib.com]

DirectoryStorage supports incremental backup using standard Unix
command-line tools.  If you use Linux, it is worth considering as an
alternative to FileStorage.  It also is the best route to no-cost
replication of a ZEO storage server for high-availability, as it has a
replication tool.  

Also, if you are using CMF for content management, consider (in addition to
ODB storage backup) serialization of your content into something that could
be backed up via FTP (text, files) for non-Zope-specific archival purposes.
To do this, you would obviously have to (a) write some scripts that used
ftplib to remotely backup the data, (b) make sure your content types
supported FTP for download/upload, and (c) write another script to remotely
restore the data via FTP (and XML-RPC if needed).  You may need to arrange
some means to keep content metadata in this case, which might require you to
write out metadata files for each file you download (that is, files that
can't embed their own metadata).  Keep offsite CDR or DVDR copies of your
"raw" content somewhere safe.  These are the steps that I am planning for a
CMF deployment that I'm currently working on.

Sean

-----Original Message-----
From: Sally Owens [mailto:sowens@brookes.ac.uk]
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 8:09 AM
To: zope-cmf@zope.org
Subject: [Zope-CMF] backup strategies


Hi,

we are considering moving our main university web site over to Zope(with 
CMF). One of the major concerns that we have is downtime if something goes 
wrong (either with Zope, or CMF, or with the datafile). I was wondering 
what common 'backup strategies' people use to minimize this sort of thing 
(obviously we would be backing up the datafile and we will have a separate 
development and 'live' server)? We will be moving from a flat HTML file 
system (where it is easy to tell if the data is corrupt, and easy to sort 
out problems with the server) to Zope and CMF (where you might not notice 
problems with the datafile until it's too late and by then your backups 
might be corrupt too). How could we reduce the risk of data/software
failure?

Is there any way for example to *test* Data.fs when you back it up (to be 
sure that you are not backing up corrupt data)?

What backup strategies do other organisations employ to minimize the risk 
of your Zope/CMF sites falling over?

All advice gratefully received.

Thanks,
Sally


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