This article will cover how your Cloud Plan is backed up and additional options you have for backups.  This article will be broken down by plan type.

Managed Hosting:

Plans Included in this Backup Strategy:

• Managed LAMP
• Managed ASP.NET
• Managed WordPress
• Managed DNN

What is backed up and what I need to do as a customer.

These plans include these backup methods.

1. Nightly Cloud Server backups.  Each night, the server is backed up in full.  One copy is kept, and the existing copy is discarded once the next nights backup runs.  3essentials can restore the Cloud Server in Full from the backup.  This will replace all data and set it back to the time of the backup.  This type of restore is designed for disaster recovery.
2. Plesk Backups.  Customers will need to login to Plesk and create backups either scheduled or run them manually when they wish to make a backup.  Plesk backups can only be restored from within Plesk.  3essentials strongly recommends that customers use Plesk File Manager to zip files up and or make copies when working on their web site.
3. Database Backups.
   1. Plesk 12 for Linux.  Customers wanting to make a Database Only backup will use PHPMyAdmin to "Export" the database.  Note that the Plesk Backup Manager (#2 above) will backup the database, but also backs up the site so when restoring via the Plesk backup Manager both the website and database(s) will be restored.
   2. Plesk 12 for Windows. Database only back ups for MS SQL can be done via the Plesk Backup Manager.  See this Video: http://www.3essentials.com/video.asp Select "Database Backups Using Plesk"

Cloud Servers:

Plans Included in this Backup Strategy:

• Any Customer/Self Managed Cloud Server
• PHP Cloud
• ASP.NET Cloud

What is backed up and what I need to do as a customer.

These plans include these backup methods.

1. Nightly Cloud Server backups.  Each night, the server is backed up in full.  One copy is kept, and the existing copy is discarded once the next nights backup runs.  3essentials can restore the Cloud Server in Full from the backup.  This will replace all data and set it back to the time of the backup.  This type of restore is designed for disaster recovery.
2. Plesk Backups.  With Customer / Self Managed Cloud Servers the customer has both OS admin /root  and Plesk admin credentials to configure backups per the customer needs.