Why do you need backup your online store with Backup To Dropbox module for Magento 2?

The very name "the ONLINE store" suggests that such a business's virtual presence is the main way to operate. The whole process of interaction with customers takes place online. However, its operation on the Internet is possible only due to stored website components on servers.

Store processes that take place on a server basis include:

  • maintenance;
  • online shop development and growth;
  • personal accounts moderation;
  • catalogs management;
  • import and export of goods;
  • content making;
  • uploading new photos, videos, and texts;
  • orders managing;
  • processing of payments;
  • shipment processing;
  • registration of returns/exchange and complaints;
  • processing of various statistics and reports,

and many other operations must be underway continuously. Each component is crucial, and the loss of data from at least one process will lead to nasty consequences.

Let's compare

In offline shops, the owners always spend a lot of attention to preserve and protect all their assets. It's a must-have to hire security guards against thieves, video surveillance systems and arrange wireless security set up water spray extinguishing systems to prevent damage of documents or goods, etc.

The same intentions applied to a website as well. But other specifics need to be considered. All vital information is transmitted and stored in a virtual form. And many entrepreneurs and other people still have the strong impression that the online world is a "safe strongbox where you can put all you want for lifelong storage" without the risk of loss and the danger of spoiling the data. Unfortunately, technology hasn't yet reached this level of development.

Why do you need a backup of the online store?

We are happy if you don't have the painful experience of losing important information ever. But we also know that different websites suffer from various bugs and information loss from hard drives every day. It sounds catastrophic, but such a fate may not wait for you if you make a backup of all critical information in advance.

We believe that you're one of the responsible owners and have hosted your website on a trusted server that allows you to make backups and store local copies on your PCs. But even so, your site is protected only from external threats that don't affect the server or data center. In case of server failure, it's usually impossible to log in and save the necessary information.

Plus, among other things, you have to keep track of backup updates, delete outdated versions of copies, and conveniently structure to have easy access to everything you need. But why should you do extra work at a time when every minute is valuable?

Now it's obvious that we all should do backups to return a proven and reliable version of our websites if something bad happens.

Backup to Dropbox

Dropbox is one of the leaders in file cloud hosting in today's market. It allows you to store, sync, and organize files. This way, you and your laborers have a safe workspace and avoid the risks of data loss. The process of creating backups can be easily automated using our Backup to Dropbox module for your Magento 2 store.

An online store site backup is a set of CMS files and a copy of the database. The database stores all information about

  • orders;
  • users;
  • goods;
  • settings for delivery and payment methods;
  • web store structure;
  • selected styles;
  • layouts settings;

etc.

With the latest backup, you can restore to the previous version in case of any technical problems. Timely made backup can save time and nerve cells for you and your employees.

But, in creating backups, it's essential not only to create but also to store and replace these backups properly. Below you can read detailed information about its configuration.

Configuration

The Backup to Dropbox extension is painless to customize. There are four configuration blocks: General, Notifications, Clean Backups, and Backup Ignore List.

In the GENERAL configuration block, in the Enable drop-down list, you should enable Backup to Dropbox extension work by selecting "Yes."

In DropBox Access Token, type a code that was received during registration on dropbox.developer.

Then select Backup Type depending on what you do want to save in backup, which can be: Database; Database and Media; System or System (excluding Media).

In the drop-down list Choose, please, database backup format select format to make a database backup.

If you want the backup process starts automatically, then set the time when the extension should start creating it in Start Time special fields.

Choose how often the extension should create a backup in the Frequency drop-down list.

To enable Maintenance Mode, select "Yes" in the particular field.

In the Check Connection or Run Backup section, click on the process you want.

In the NOTIFICATIONS configuration block, you can configure notifications and always be informed about the module's work. In Send an Email, you can select "Yes" if you want to get reports about backup details. In Email, you should type then an email to get a report.

Email Notification looks like:

In the CLEAN BACKUPS configuration block, you can set up whether to delete old backups and when.

The extension allows you to configure an ignore list of folders and databases in the BACKUP IGNORE LIST configuration block. All you need is to enter the paths to those folders in the particular fields of Folder Ignore List. Or to enter the name of some tables in the specific fields of Database Table Ignore List. You can add them as much as you need.

  • Also don’t forget to enable backup in Stores ->Configuration -> System -> Backup Settings -> Enable Backup - select “Yes”.

Examples

Here is an example of a created backup to Dropbox files:

Look at the example of creating a backup ignore folder list. Here we can see how "setup" and "update" were ignored:

Here's an example of creating table ignore list. Table list was ignored during backup and after backup creation, we can see how all content of the table do not include data inside the table.