Protecting your WordPress web property from an unforeseen disaster is now imperative for most businesses. Yet far too many sites still rely on backups alone (or worse, don’t have backups at all) for data protection.
In this blog we will go through 10 good reasons why you need a disaster recovery (DR) service for your WordPress site. We’ll also see how the benefits of DR extend well beyond what you get with backups.
In addition to the obvious reasons of data protection and preparedness for any type of disruptive event, having a DR service (DR-as-a-Service, or DRaaS) for your WordPress site also delivers you a platform for improvements in performance optimisation and security.
DR also goes beyond an internal staging setups by allowing you to recover in the event of an outage or problem with your primary provider’s systems or networks.
1. Better data protection
It goes without saying that you need DR for the specific purpose of mitigating a disaster and any resulting business disruption. As more businesses go digital – and a website becomes more than just an online brochure – DR is now an essential part of any business continuity strategy.
This means DR is something you need in addition to regular backups. Backups serve a purpose to get a snapshot of your site’s data and everyone should be backing up their WordPress site; however, disaster recovery ensures your site can continue to operate in the event of a problem at the main hosting location or service provider.
DR and backups complement each other and both should be done for a total data protection architecture.
2. Mitigate cloud provider contractual risks
The majority of WordPress web sites on the Internet are hosted by specialist cloud hosting providers. This is good for customers as it helps them focus on their blog or business site without having to worry about servers, storage and application maintenance.
While clouds are great for immediacy and convenience, having only one provider hosting your site introduces the exposure to a possible dispute or targeted attack relating to that provider. In such a scenario it might take a long time to recover to a state where you can continue to operate as usual.
Targeted attacks, such as a DDoS attack, can bring down a single hosting provider and, if you ever enter into a dispute with your WordPress hosting company, your service could be suspended or even terminated without much notice.
A DR service provider is external to your main host and gives you the option to recover your business simply by updating DNS details in the event of a problem or dispute.
3. Scale up (or down) fast
DR is not trivial to set up or plan capacity for, but with a WordPress DR service you can add or remove sites to your DR plan quickly and easily.
The DR provider will be able to add protected sites quickly and this suits organisations looking to build on and innovate with WordPress at a pace.
DRaaS can be used to protect sites when they are in development and testing, not just in production. Capacity planning is a challenge at the best of times so save yourself the time and expense of DR scaling with DRaaS.
And if a WordPress instance no longer needs DR you can scale back accordingly.
4. It costs less than in-house DR
DRaaS will almost always cost less than going it alone, and WordPress DR is no exception.
The purpose of DR is to separate production from secondary systems and this includes everything from the server, storage and database capacity to the network and location the data is hosted in.
DRaaS providers already have the separate hosting infrastructure in place and have the software and expertise to perform the periodic data transfer.
Save time, money and reduce risk with a dedicated WordPress DR service.
5. Faster restore times
We mentioned backups are important, but if a provider’s network goes down you might not be able to restore from a backup in a reasonable amount of time to meet your business needs.
This is where DR comes in. A good WordPress DR service will enable you to keep trading under a subdomain, or after a quick change of DNS settings. This will get you up and running faster than backups and mitigates the exposure of not being able to restore from a backup that is impacted by an outage in a production environment.
Taking continuous snapshots of your WordPress site to a DR location gives you an added layer of protection.
6. More holistic business continuity
Most organisations have some level of business continuity strategy or plan and the Web site should not be left out of this.
For e-commerce businesses DR is a must, but the need for DR is increasing as all businesses build on the Web for marketing, customer service and community engagement.
Don’t wait until a disaster strikes to discover the level of importance of the Web site to your business. By having the Web site included in your business continuity strategy any gaps between mission critical and the digital face of the organisation will be closed and not only revealed in the event of a disaster.
7. Protect content and marketing investments
In addition to business continuity, a DR service protects investments in content and marketing, including media assets.
DR is more than just hosting and data protection, it adds immense value to the organisation because it protects all the investments made in the Web property.
Any popular WordPress site will have gathered investments in content, media, brand positioning, cloud integrations and marketing automations. Don’t let these investments go down the drain. Protect your content and marketing investments with DRaaS.
8. Mitigate human error
Human error is a fact of life and sometimes a simple mistake can be costly for your business particularly if e-commerce is involved.
With a cloud DR service by your side your technical people can be confident any change made can be recovered if it results in site corruption or data loss – either during Web development or regular content editing.
A good DR service will also be highly automated further reducing the potential for a stray keystroke to cause business headaches.
9. Protect other business data (thanks to WordPress plugins)
WordPress is one of the most extensible Web application and content management systems available today and it’s not unusual for it to host a range of business applications – from forums to customer contacts.
This rich ecosystem and data management flexibility makes WordPress a great option for protecting data primarily used by other applications in the organisation’s portfolio. For example, in the case of customer contacts, you can easily extract the data from a SaaS CRM application and import them into a WordPress-based CRM for entry into a backup and DR service.
As we discussed, mitigation of a cloud contract or a “fair use” policy dispute, is one important reason to have a DR service in the first place. A WordPress DR service gives you the option of protection much more than just your Web site content.
10. Discover backup and retention gaps
Taking backups is often viewed as a “set and forget” activity that is infallible and doing a job to protect data without any problems.
In reality, backup processes and technologies themselves can be fraught with problems, even to the extent of providing a false sense of security. Backup risks include: lack of file checking; gaps in data capture; backup software or system failures; long recovery times; difficulty performing restores; and poor storage policies to name a few.
Backups that do not meet the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) requirements of the business can result in significant impact in the event of a problem.
Then there is data retention. Are backups doing enough to retain your data to meet storage and compliance requirements? A managed DR service will help identify any gaps in your backup capability and give you the option of taking yet another set up backups from the DR location.
WPQuasar’s managed WordPress DR service 
Now you’re across the good reasons to DR your WordPress Web property, let’s talk about how WPQuasar’s managed DRaaS can help keep your business running. WPQuasar offers the best DRaaS on the market and all customers benefit from:
- Fully managed setup
- Ongoing, secure data protection
- DR to the WPQuasar cloud, or another cloud of your choice
- DR from on-premises setups to cloud
- A site security and health report
- DNS settings support
- Restoration support
Make contact with WPQuasar today and start protecting your investments today.
