Hey everyone! I'm gearing up to launch my first service, which will be deployed on Hetzner in a month. Following the launch, I'll have a testing phase for about a month before onboarding my first client. My biggest concern is the potential for downtimes or data loss. I've got plans for database backups, but I'm worried about scenarios like backup failures or corruption, or even losing the server where backups are stored. What strategies do you all use for managing these kinds of risks in production environments? Really appreciate any advice you can offer!
6 Answers
Focus on designing for availability during your architecture phase. Set up alerts to notify you of downtime and have your backup system send alerts if anything fails. Periodic backup tests will also help ensure everything runs smoothly when it counts!
If you're really worried, why not hire an intern to stress test your system like a chaos monkey? They can help you find issues before your real clients do!
Consider using the 3-2-1 backup strategy: keep 3 copies of your data, store them on 2 different mediums, and make 1 offsite. For instance, have your live data, a backup server, and then store another copy in a cloud service like S3. It's also crucial to verify your backups—you don't want to find out they're corrupt when you really need them. Just restoring to a sandbox environment and ensuring it works can save you a lot of hassle later.
Think through and list out every possible failure scenario you can imagine, like database corruption or sudden spikes in user traffic. Simulate those failures to see how you'd respond—they might surprise you! If your client cares about reliability, set up a separate environment just for testing these kinds of failures. It’s the best way to build confidence and prepare for real issues.
Sometimes, all you can do is let go of the fear. Just prepare as best as you can and don’t let anxiety overwhelm you. You're going to learn from whatever happens—even failures will teach you valuable lessons!
That's a valid concern! Try to create 2 or 3 copies of your service for redundancy and load balancing. Keep backups offline and offsite to help protect against data loss. You’ll be alright, and remember, even if things don’t go as planned, you’ll learn what not to do next time. You've got this!
And make sure those backups are not all in the same AWS account; I've seen that mistake before!