Shopify has disaster recovery backups of their whole platform and every account on it in case of a calamity. The backups are updated regularly.
A Shopify disaster recovery backup aims to restore the complete Shopify platform if something occurs to their primary data centers, such as a natural disaster resulting in a flood or a malicious assault by hackers, among other things.
Although these calamities are exceedingly unusual, systems like Shopify ensure they are prepared in the event of one.
Shopify’s disaster recovery backup can’t be utilized to restore data from a merchant’s individual shop, which is critical information for merchants to grasp. However, you should keep in mind that the backup comprises the information of all 800,000 businesses on the Online store. It is not set up so that Shopify workers can choose whatever data they want to recover.
That means you run the risk of losing important information from the store if you do any of the following:
You, or somebody with access to your store’s administration panel, unintentionally removed a blog post, a page, or a product. Someone who has access to your shop deletes vital data from the account with harmful intent.
Unwanted modifications are made to your Shopify shop as a result of a third-party app that you have installed. You attempted to import a CSV file into the Shopify store, but the file included an error.
You’ll need an account-level backup if you want to store and retrieve information from your single Shopify store. Goshu Backup App comes into play in this situation.
Goshu Backup App can create a backup of your Online store for you, allowing you to reverse mistakes and retrieve data that has been accidentally lost. It’s similar to having insurance coverage for your internet business.
Table of Contents
Does Shopify have a disaster recovery in place?
Disaster recovery is a topic that is related. When discussing disaster recovery, we usually refer to what would happen if your website suffered a catastrophic failure.
Often, they are alluded to as ‘acts of God,’ such as storms destroying a data center or a tsunami destroying your server, among other things. Problems can arise in data centers, but they are not generally caused by natural catastrophes.
When someone typed the wrong command in 2017, it resulted in a massive outage, and power outages can sometimes occur throughout whole data centers.
What happens when your server or your entire network is no longer accessible? It is recommended that you keep a backup of your data available so that it is secure; nevertheless, simply having the data does not imply that you are back online and accepting transactions.
For the most part, unless you have some sort of cross-datacenter redundancy in place, you will have to expect that your website will be down for an extended period.
Provisioning a new server (or servers), configuring them, and finally deploying your backup are all steps that must be completed. You’re probably talking about many days’ worth of effort.
We relocated all Shopify stores on the United States East Coast to the United States Central to safeguard against Hurricane Florence. With minimal downtime, this was accomplished automatically.
- Tobi Ltke is the CEO of Shopify.
Shopify’s infrastructure is designed to be very resilient in a calamity. Tobi Ltke, the CEO of Shopify, sent a tweet about Hurricane Florence last year. At the time, Hurricane Florence was barreling toward many data centers on the Eastern Coast of the United States, posing the potential for significant damage.
To quote Tobi: “We relocated all Shopify stores on the East Coast of the United States to the Central United States as a precaution against Hurricane Florence.” With minimal downtime, this was accomplished automatically.
Platform Characteristics
Moving on to Shopify, this e-commerce platform performs all of the functions you would expect from one. This includes creating categories, searches, blogs, content pages, product pages, contact pages, other pages, and other functionality. We cannot mention every single element of the platform due to the sheer number of options available; thus, we encourage you to explore the site yourself.
Multi-Channel
One of the great benefits of Shopify is the option to sell through numerous channels. The majority of clients sell entirely online. However, they do have the need to sell in person from time to time on occasion.
At a pop-up brick-and-mortar store, a trade show, or an exhibition. Shopify makes the process of making the switch quite simple. For mobile and tablet devices, various programs can transform your smartphone into a fully functional EPOS system (point of sale).
Using this method, you may simulate your whole product catalog while also accepting credit card payments in reality. In fact, a little device is available that allows you to accept contactless payments while you are on the road.
Integrations with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
The good news is that Shopify is on your side if you run a business that also has to manage a warehouse and have an ERP system.
Shopify’s app store is rigorously reviewed by the company’s personnel to guarantee that the applications work correctly and that there are few, if there are any, customer service difficulties to contend with. This is especially critical when the app is used to process payments.
The Shopify app store provides many plugins that allow your shop to communicate with enterprise resource planning systems. And, of course, Shopify has a robust REST API for dealing with your data, which means we can create middleware to interface with any ERP system if one doesn’t exist.
PCI Compliance (Payment Card Industry Compliance)
If you have ever worked in an online retail environment with significant transactions, you may have heard the term PCI/DSS compliance.
PCI compliance refers to a set of technological standards and practices that must be applied throughout your organization to ensure that your customer’s payment information is kept safe and confidential.
Implementing PCI/DSS may be costly and complex, and demonstrating that you are in compliance can be much more difficult.
If you are operating a self-hosted business, you must ensure that all PCI/DSS compliance requirements are met. Although Shopify and all their hosted shops are verified Level 1 PCI DSS Compliant, you would not be liable in this case.
Security
Our final subject is, without a doubt, among the most essential. Security. Let us begin by taking a look at the competitors.
WooCommerce is based on WordPress, the world’s most widely used content management system (CMS). Drupal, the 2nd most popular CMS, has a market share of 47 percent, while WordPress has a market share of 5 percent. WordPress’s popularity, however, is its own demise since it has painted a giant bullseye on its back.
Malicious developers have devised tools that cruise the Internet for out-of-date WordPress installations, insecure plugins, poorly constructed themes, and known WordPress exploits. Malicious developers are using these tools to spread malware.
WordPress is a pretty safe platform, but the code users write for it in themes, plugins, and third-party extensions is not always as secure as the platform itself.
This makes security an essential concern for anyone who manages a large WordPress website, and it becomes much more critical when dealing with online money and commerce.
How to create a disaster recovery for your Shopify store?
Goshu is another popular target for would-be attackers to prey on. Magento used to be the undisputed leader in e-commerce, but it has now been overtaken by both WooCommerce and Shopify. On top of that, the Goshu community has found a number of highly hazardous vulnerabilities that may be used against the platform.
Patching Goshu can be a far more difficult process than patching WooCommerce. Because of this, sites are delayed in being patched when security updates are issued, which can result in vulnerable sites being left unpatched. In the previous paragraph, we said that Shopify is a hosted platform. When it comes to the fundamental backend code that powers Shopify, you, as a developer, are out of luck.
However, you will not be able to modify, change, or view the code that powers Shopify itself. You can only extend it using APIs and create independent applications for the administration area.
As a result, it is very secure. In the unlikely event that a security vulnerability is discovered, it will be patched by Shopify themselves and rolled out across the whole platform in complete quiet, with no one ever knowing it had happened.
Frequently Asked Questions about Shopify disaster recovery
1. Is Shopify backed up?
Shopify has disaster recovery copies of their whole platform as well as every account on it in case of a calamity. The backups are updated on a regular basis.
The aim of a disaster response backup is to restore the complete Shopify platform in the event that something occurs to their primary data centers, including a natural disaster resulting in a deluge or a malicious assault by hackers, among other things. Although these sorts of calamities are exceedingly unusual, systems like Shopify make certain that they are prepared in the event of one.
Shopify’s business continuity backup cannot be utilized to restore data from a merchant’s individual shop, which is critical information for merchants to grasp.
You should keep in mind, however, that backup comprises the information of all 800,000 businesses on the Shopify platform. It is not set up in such a way that Shopify workers may pick and choose whatever data they want to recover.
That means you run the risk of losing important information from your Shopify store if you do any of the following:
You, or someone with access to your store’s administration panel, unintentionally removed a blog post, a page, or a product. Someone who has access to your shop deletes vital data from your accounts with harmful intent.
Unwanted modifications are made to your Shopify shop as a result of a third-party app that you have installed. You attempted to import a CSV file into the Shopify store, but the file included an error.
An account-level backup is what you’ll need if you want to store and retrieve data from your single Shopify store.
2. Can you recover deleted Shopify products?
You can smartly recover deleted Shopify products using a tool like Goshu to help you with the task.
3. How much does disaster recovery cost?
Trying to recover data on Shopify can be done for as little as just $7/month. You can find plenty of options online to help you do that.
4. What does a disaster recovery plan do?
On Shopify, there is a great deal of space for mistakes. If you’re using the service for a long enough period of time, you’re probably aware of how simple it can be to make a mistake that cannot be reversed.
Moreover, if you’ve ever been in a similar scenario, you’re undoubtedly aware of how little accountability the Shopify team bears when it comes to errors you’ve committed.
Some of these blunders are as simple as accidentally removing one product (and no, there is no undo option for that) to as complex as accidentally deactivating a whole store theme. What causes this to happen? Take a look at some of the following usage cases:
It’s 2:00 a.m. and you accidentally hit “delete” instead of “duplicate”… poof… your product is no longer available.
You’re bulk updating your items and uploading a CSV with the checkbox marked “replace goods with the same title”… however your CSV was screwed up and it wipes out all of your product information.
In order to correct a minor formatting problem on your About page, you hire an amateur developer at a bargain-basement cost, and (s)he ends up erasing your whole JSON (read: content) files.
You employ a marketing representative who is a little hot under the collar, and you come to an agreement on certain labor expenses. In the end, (s)he chooses to erase everything in your business as a form of retaliation.
You install a quasi-app and provide it complete access to your device, and… well… you get the picture.
Anyone who has been in a position similar (typically followed by tears, alcohol, and a late-night Shopify help live session) understands the agony that comes with it. There aren’t many things that can compare to the sensation of having completely messed up your business.
It doesn’t help that Shopify isn’t responsible for your financial loss in any way. Not just that, but they also have few, if any, means of assisting you in those circumstances as well.
A typical responsibility of Shopify (or any other online shop, for that issue) is merely the overall security of the portal as a whole.
Thus, Shopify is only concerned with issues that affect a large number of Shopify customers, such as the daily reliability of the Shopify platform, the operation of the payments system, and the overall security of all data stored on the platform.
Your responsibility extends to something which has to do with your store directly, such as the items you sell, the designs you use, or the client lists you maintain.
What all of this ultimately comes down to is this:
You and your ecommerce provider (Shopify) are both responsible for ensuring that your data is safe and readily available at all times.
Shopify is in charge of the platform’s development, infrastructure, and disaster recovery. Shopify is based in San Francisco. Merchants are solely responsible for the security of their passwords, the permissions granted to customers and third-party applications, and the backups of the data they maintain in their online storefronts.
However, even though Shopify maintains a meta of their whole system, the company will not utilize it to restore any individual account to an earlier point in time.
It should come as no surprise that Shopify does not provide much in the way of capability for backing up your website. To put it another way, that is not their concern. And when something isn’t an issue, it’s not uncommon for people to refrain from devoting time, money, and effort to finding a solution.
Conclusion
To solve any problem, you do what every Shopify store owner does: install a third-party app from the App Store. (Of course, you could manually export your customers, goods, purchases, styles, and comments daily and keep them in spreadsheets scattered across your cloud… (However, that’d be a royal pain in the backside.)
There are several tools available that will automatically back up all of your Shopify information.
