Disaster Recovery Planning for Small Business Websites

Introduction: Why Disaster Recovery Matters

Imagine this: You arrive at work Monday morning, and your website is down. Not just slow—completely gone. Your database is corrupted, and your last backup is three months old. Your online store has been offline for six hours. Every minute costs you customers and revenue.

This nightmare scenario happens to businesses every day. Server failures, cyberattacks, human error, natural disasters—any of these can take your website offline without warning.

The good news? With proper disaster recovery (DR) planning, you can minimize downtime and data loss. This guide shows you how to create a practical disaster recovery plan for your small business website.

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster recovery is your documented plan for restoring IT systems and data after a disruptive event. For websites, this means:

• Backup strategies: What data you backup and how often
• Recovery procedures: Step-by-step restoration processes
• Failover systems: Backup servers or hosting to switch to
• Communication plans: How you'll notify customers and stakeholders
• Roles and responsibilities: Who does what during recovery

DR vs Business Continuity

While related, these terms have different meanings:

• Disaster Recovery (DR): Restoring IT systems after an incident
• Business Continuity (BC): Keeping business operations running during and after an incident

DR is a component of BC. This article focuses on the technical aspects of recovering your website.

Understanding Key DR Metrics

Before building your plan, understand these critical metrics:

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Definition: Maximum acceptable downtime before business impact becomes severe.

Examples:

• E-commerce site: 1-2 hours (every minute offline = lost revenue)
• Informational blog: 24 hours (less critical)
• SaaS application: 30 minutes (customers depend on availability)
• Corporate website: 4-8 hours (acceptable for most businesses)

Your RTO determines your backup frequency and recovery infrastructure.

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Definition: Maximum acceptable data loss measured in time.

Examples:

• E-commerce with frequent transactions: 5-15 minutes
• Blog with occasional posts: 24 hours
• High-volume database: Real-time replication (RPO near zero)

Your RPO determines your backup schedule.

RTO/RPO Cost Tradeoff

Lower RTO and RPO require more investment:

Most small businesses target 4-24 hour RTO with 12-24 hour RPO—a sweet spot balancing cost and protection.

Common Disaster Scenarios

Your DR plan should address these common threats:

1. Hardware Failure

Risk: Server hardware eventually fails—hard drives, power supplies, RAID controllers.

Impact: Complete site outage until hardware replaced or migrated.

Mitigation:

• Use managed VPS hosting with hardware redundancy
• Maintain off-server backups
• Have migration procedures documented

2. Data Corruption

Risk: Software bugs, failed updates, or malware corrupt databases or files.

Impact: Website displays errors or incorrect data.

Mitigation:

• Multiple generations of backups (not just the latest)
• Regular backup testing and validation
• Database transaction logs for point-in-time recovery

3. Cyberattacks

Risk: Ransomware, DDoS attacks, website defacement, data breaches.

Impact: Site unavailable, data encrypted/stolen, reputation damage.

Mitigation:

• Immutable backups (can't be encrypted by ransomware)
• DDoS protection services
• Regular security updates and monitoring
• See our Linux security guide

4. Human Error

Risk: Accidental file deletion, database drops, configuration mistakes.

Impact: Lost data, broken functionality.

Mitigation:

• Frequent automated backups
• Version control for code and configuration
• Staging environments for testing changes
• Restricted access to production systems

5. Natural Disasters

Risk: Floods, fires, earthquakes, power outages affecting data centers.

Impact: Extended outages if entire data center goes offline.

Mitigation:

• Geographic redundancy (backups in different locations)
• Cloud-based backup storage
• Failover hosting in different data center

6. Provider Issues

Risk: Hosting company goes out of business, gets acquired, or has service problems.

Impact: Forced migration under time pressure.

Mitigation:

• Choose reliable providers with long track records
• Maintain off-site backups you control
• Document your hosting environment

Building Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Step 1: Inventory Your Assets

Document everything that needs protection:

Website Components:

• Web files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images)
• Application code (PHP, Python, etc.)
• Database(s) and their sizes
• Configuration files
• SSL certificates
• Email accounts and data
• DNS records
• Third-party integrations and API keys

Create an asset inventory spreadsheet with:

• Asset name and description
• Location (server path, control panel, etc.)
• Size and growth rate
• Criticality (critical, important, nice-to-have)
• Dependencies (what else needs this to function)

Step 2: Define Your RTO and RPO

For each critical asset, determine:

• How long can you afford to be without it? (RTO)
• How much data loss is acceptable? (RPO)

Example for e-commerce site:

• Product database: RTO = 2 hours, RPO = 1 hour
• Order database: RTO = 1 hour, RPO = 15 minutes
• Website files: RTO = 4 hours, RPO = 24 hours
• Marketing content: RTO = 24 hours, RPO = 1 week

Step 3: Design Your Backup Strategy

Based on your RTO/RPO, design a backup schedule.

The 3-2-1 Backup Rule:

• 3 copies of data (original + 2 backups)
• 2 different storage types (server + cloud, or disk + tape)
• 1 copy off-site (different physical location)

Recommended backup schedule for small business:

• Database: Automated hourly or daily (depending on RPO)
• Website files: Daily or weekly (files change less frequently)
• Email: Daily
• Configuration: After every change

Backup retention:

• Keep 7 daily backups
• Keep 4 weekly backups
• Keep 12 monthly backups
• Keep 1 yearly backup for compliance

Step 4: Choose Backup Storage

Option 1: On-Server Backups

• Pros: Fast, convenient, cheap
• Cons: Lost if server fails or is compromised
• Use for: Quick restoration, first line of defense only

Option 2: Off-Site Storage (Cloud)

• Pros: Protected from server failures, geographic redundancy
• Cons: Slower to restore, monthly costs
• Services: Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Google Cloud Storage
• Use for: Primary backup destination

Option 3: Secondary Hosting Provider

• Pros: Can serve as hot standby, faster failover
• Cons: More expensive (paying for two servers)
• Use for: Mission-critical sites with low RTO requirements

Step 5: Implement Automated Backups

Database backup script example:

#!/bin/bash
# Daily MySQL backup script

BACKUP_DIR="/backups/mysql"
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)
DB_USER="backup_user"
DB_PASS="secure_password"
DB_NAME="your_database"

# Create backup
mysqldump -u$DB_USER -p$DB_PASS $DB_NAME | gzip > $BACKUP_DIR/db_$DATE.sql.gz

# Upload to cloud storage (example: S3)
aws s3 cp $BACKUP_DIR/db_$DATE.sql.gz s3://your-backup-bucket/mysql/

# Keep only last 7 days locally
find $BACKUP_DIR -type f -mtime +7 -delete

echo "Backup completed: db_$DATE.sql.gz"

Schedule with cron:

# Run daily at 2 AM
0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup-database.sh

Website files backup:

#!/bin/bash
# Weekly website files backup

BACKUP_DIR="/backups/website"
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d)
SITE_DIR="/var/www/html"

# Create compressed archive
tar -czf $BACKUP_DIR/website_$DATE.tar.gz $SITE_DIR

# Upload to cloud
aws s3 cp $BACKUP_DIR/website_$DATE.tar.gz s3://your-backup-bucket/website/

# Keep only last 4 weeks
find $BACKUP_DIR -type f -mtime +28 -delete

Step 6: Test Your Backups

Critical: Untested backups are worthless. You must verify they work.

Testing procedure (quarterly minimum):

1. Download a recent backup
2. Restore it to a test environment
3. Verify all functionality works
4. Document any issues or gaps
5. Time the restoration process (confirms you can meet RTO)

What to check during test restoration:

• Website loads correctly
• All pages accessible
• Images and media display
• Database queries work
• User logins function
• Forms submit properly
• Admin areas accessible

Step 7: Document Recovery Procedures

Create step-by-step recovery documentation. During a disaster, stress is high—clear documentation prevents mistakes.

Your DR documentation should include:

1. Contact information: Hosting provider, DNS registrar, key personnel
2. Asset inventory: What needs to be restored
3. Backup locations: Where backups are stored, access credentials
4. Recovery procedures: Step-by-step restoration instructions
5. Failover procedures: How to switch to backup systems
6. Communication templates: Email/social media messages for customers
7. Roles and responsibilities: Who does what during recovery

Example recovery procedure outline:

## Database Recovery Procedure

1. Assess situation and identify last good backup
2. Provision new database server if needed
3. Download backup from S3: aws s3 cp s3://bucket/backup.sql.gz .
4. Extract: gunzip backup.sql.gz
5. Import: mysql -u root -p database_name < backup.sql
6. Verify data integrity
7. Update application configuration with new DB connection
8. Test application functionality
9. Switch DNS if server changed
10. Monitor for errors

Step 8: Establish Monitoring and Alerts

Detect problems quickly:

• Uptime monitoring: Pingdom, UptimeRobot, StatusCake
• Backup verification: Alerts if backups fail
• Disk space monitoring: Prevent storage-full failures
• Security monitoring: Intrusion detection, file integrity

DR Plan Maintenance

Your DR plan is not "set and forget." Regular maintenance ensures it remains effective:

Quarterly:

• Test backup restoration
• Review and update contact information
• Verify backup scripts still running

Semi-Annually:

• Full disaster recovery drill
• Update documentation for infrastructure changes
• Review RTO/RPO targets

Annually:

• Comprehensive DR plan review
• Evaluate new backup technologies
• Assess budget for DR improvements

When Disaster Strikes: Response Steps

If disaster occurs, follow this process:

1. Assess the situation: What failed? What's the scope?
2. Activate DR plan: Notify team, gather resources
3. Communicate: Notify customers of issue and expected resolution
4. Begin recovery: Follow documented procedures
5. Verify restoration: Test thoroughly before declaring success
6. Post-mortem: Document what happened, what worked, what needs improvement
7. Update plan: Incorporate lessons learned

Falcon Internet DR Support

All Falcon Internet VPS and Virtual Private Cloud plans include:

• Daily automated backups (retained 7 days)
• One-click backup restoration
• Redundant hardware infrastructure
• 24/7 technical support
• 99.9% uptime SLA

Need help designing your disaster recovery plan? Contact our team for expert consultation.

Conclusion

Key takeaways for small business DR planning:

• ✓ Define realistic RTO and RPO targets
• ✓ Follow the 3-2-1 backup rule
• ✓ Automate backups—don't rely on manual processes
• ✓ Test your backups regularly
• ✓ Document recovery procedures clearly
• ✓ Review and update your plan quarterly

Disaster recovery planning isn't exciting, but it's essential. The time and money invested in DR planning is nothing compared to the cost of extended downtime or permanent data loss.

Don't wait for disaster to strike. Start building your disaster recovery plan today.