Security & upkeep
Website backups and monitoring: what should your host provide?
Key takeaway
Daily AWS website backups are included with both hosting plans and cover website files and published content. Monitoring helps us notice problems; backups provide a recovery copy. Confirm the available copy and recovery process with us, especially for orders or bookings received since the last backup.
In this guide
A backup helps you recover. Monitoring helps you notice
A website backup is a recovery copy. Monitoring checks for problems, such as a web address that stops responding. You need to understand both: noticing an outage does not restore missing content, and a backup does not tell you that customers cannot reach the site.
Ask your host what it checks, what it copies and who helps when a check fails. “Backups included” is a starting point for that discussion, not a complete recovery plan.
Find out what is actually in the backup
Website files, published content, uploaded pictures and a database can be separate things. A copy of the visible pages may not contain the customer records or orders held in another system. Your domain, email and outside booking service can also have separate recovery arrangements.
Lightning includes daily AWS website backups in both plans. We keep recovery copies of website files and published content. Our platform exports the published website content for its recovery copy as well as taking AWS instance snapshots. That scope should not be mistaken for a backup of every external service your business uses.
Frequency and retention answer different questions
Frequency tells you how often a copy is made. Retention tells you how far back the available copies go. A daily copy can still miss work done after it ran, and a recently discovered problem may require an older copy.
Our current AWS Lightsail instance has daily automatic snapshots enabled. AWS keeps the latest seven automatic snapshots for that resource. This rolling set is separate from our application’s draft and approved-change history. If your website needs a longer recovery window or more frequent protection, agree that requirement before setup.
Confirm what your managed hosting covers
Sources: AWS Lightsail automatic snapshots (opens in a new tab)
Ask how a restore works
A useful recovery process includes checking the copy, identifying the right website and testing the recovered result before making it live. On a shared server, restoring everything can affect other websites. A recovery should be scoped to the problem.
If you need an earlier copy with us, our team checks the available backup and helps arrange the restore. Website ownership and downloads are available too, but downloading files is not the same as having every account, database and outside dependency ready to run somewhere else. We discuss those parts during a handover.
What does Lightning monitor?
Our Lightning Developments and Lightning Web Hosting websites have independent AWS availability checks. Platform checks also cover the portal and backup health, with operational alerts to the team. Those checks help us notice failures without relying only on someone reporting a problem.
An availability check confirms that a particular web address responds as expected. It does not necessarily submit your enquiry form, complete a booking or prove every page is correct. Checks for those jobs and any promised response time need to be agreed for the service you run.
See the public service statusCommon website risks and safeguardsWhat reliable hosting looks after
Sources: AWS Route 53 health checks and alerts (opens in a new tab)
Your approval history serves a different purpose
Arc’s private previews let you review a change before publishing. Previous revisions help you understand and reverse content changes. The portal also records who requested and approved them. That is separate from recovering after a server or storage problem.
Thunder hosting is NZ$55 + GST a month per website. Lightning is NZ$99 + GST and adds everyday Arc updates, subject to fair use. Daily AWS website backups, SSL, CloudFront CDN and platform security are included with both plans. Tell us about any critical data or transaction requirements so we can confirm the recovery scope before launch.