🟢 MEDIUM: Configure Automated Backups & Disaster Recovery

[Salem874]

🎯 Description

Implement comprehensive backup strategy and disaster recovery procedures to protect against data loss.

📋 Database Backups

Daily Automated Backups:

• Configure mysqldump cron job:

  0 4 * * * /usr/bin/mysqldump -u backup_user -p'password' \
    signula | gzip > /backups/signula_$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).sql.gz

• Retention policy: 30 days local, 90 days off-site
• Test restoration weekly
• Monitor backup size/growth
• Alert on backup failures

Backup Storage:

• Local: /backups/ directory (30 days)
• Off-site: AWS S3 / Backblaze B2 / DigitalOcean Spaces
• Encrypt backups (GPG/AES-256)
• Version control (keep multiple snapshots)

📋 File System Backups

Files to Backup:

• User avatars (web/_uploads/avatars/)
• Organization logos (web/_uploads/logos/)
• Log files (web/_logs/)
• Configuration (web/_private/auth.php)
• SSL certificates (if self-managed)

Backup Method:

• Use rsync for incremental backups
• Schedule daily at 5:00 AM
• Sync to remote server/cloud storage
• Verify backup integrity

📋 Disaster Recovery Plan

Recovery Time Objective (RTO): 4 hours
Recovery Point Objective (RPO): 24 hours

Recovery Procedures:

1. Database Restoration:

   # Restore from latest backup
   gunzip < /backups/signula_YYYYMMDD.sql.gz | mysql -u root -p signula

2. File Restoration:

   # Restore from S3/B2
   aws s3 sync s3://signula-backups/uploads/ /path/to/web/_uploads/

3. Configuration Restoration:

   • Restore auth.php from secure vault
   • Verify encryption keys match
   • Test database connectivity

4. Verification Steps:

   • Test user login
   • Verify payment processing
   • Test email delivery
   • Check API functionality

📋 Backup Testing Schedule

• Weekly: Restore test database from latest backup
• Monthly: Full disaster recovery drill
• Quarterly: Document recovery time actual vs. RTO
• Document lessons learned

📋 Monitoring & Alerting

• Monitor backup completion status
• Alert on backup failures
• Monitor backup storage usage
• Alert on storage capacity warnings (>80%)
• Track backup/restore times

✅ Acceptance Criteria

• Daily automated database backups
• Daily automated file system backups
• Off-site backup storage configured
• Backups encrypted
• Successful restoration tested
• Disaster recovery runbook documented
• RTO/RPO documented
• Monitoring and alerts configured

📊 Priority

Medium - Essential for production data protection.

⏱️ Estimated Effort

4-6 hours (setup + testing + documentation)