Archive for February, 2012
How to do cheap backups
This post is a follow up to Why we moved off the cloud.
As a company, we want to do reliable backups on the cheap. By “cheap” I mean in terms of cost and, more importantly, in terms of developer’s time and attention. In this article, I’ll discuss how we’ve been able to accomplish this and the factors that we consider important.
Backups are an insurance policy. Like conventional insurance policies (e.g. renter’s), you want piece of mind that your stuff is covered if disaster strikes, while paying the best price you can from the available options.
Backups are similar. Both your team and your customers can rest a bit more easily knowing that you have your data elsewhere in case of unforeseen events. But on the flip side, backups cost money and time that could be better applied to improving your product — delivering more features, making it faster, etc. This is good motivation for keeping the cost low while still being reliable.