Volume Shadow Copy Service
(VSS) is enabled on the CoastalDatalink.NET Windows 2003
servers. The service allows website files (htm, html, php, asp, pl,
anyfile, etc) to be tracked as changes are made to them by developers
either though FrontPage or FTP.
Here is how it works. Lets
use index.htm file as an example as it is a common file name used on most
websites. Every time index.html is changed - the server will make a
"backup" of that version and store it for up to 14 days. If index.html is
changed 3 times over the course of 3 separate days, the server will store
each change since the last time it took a snapshot. Therefore, you can
potentially restore index.html to any of it's previous 3 versions. This
is particularly useful for files that have been accidentally overwritten
with outdated code or information (common if multiple people are doing
website updates to a single domain). By submitting a Website Restore
Request Form, CoastalDatalink.NET can quickly recovery your file back
to the version date you wish.
There is a catch, however.
The server has been scheduled to take a "snapshot" of all the websites
that are provisioned on the system. Four Snapshots are taken in a 24
hour period at 12pm, 6pm, 12am, 6am (Note: all times are in CST
(-6 GMT))
Which means that every 6 hours the server will have a snapshot that it can
compare changes to. Therefore if you change a file 10 times within a
6 hour period or before the next snapshot, only the version that was known
to the server at the previous snapshot will be stored for recovery.
In addition, the VSS server does not replace our fully automated nightly
backup. Should your website accidentally be deleted, CoastalDatalink.NET can restore the website from our backups for up to
7 days.
Click on the 'Support'
tab anywhere on the CoastalDatalink.NET website to access our VSS Restore Website Request Form or our
Website Restore Request
Form.
