At WebOps Hosting, every site is protected by three independent backup systems running at different levels of the stack. Each layer covers a different kind of failure, so a problem at one level (a corrupted database, a failed server, a lost data center) is always recoverable at the next level up. You do nothing. The whole system is configured, monitored, and maintained by us.
Why Three Layers?
One backup is a single point of failure. If your only copy of the site lives on the same server as the site itself, a server-level problem takes both down. If your only copy lives in one data center, a regional outage erases everything. The way to make backups reliable is to keep them at multiple levels and in multiple places, with each layer protecting against a different kind of failure.
Our three layers are not three copies of the same backup. They are three different backup systems with different scopes, different schedules, and different recovery times. Each handles a specific class of problem.
Layer 1: Per-Site WordPress Backups
What it protects against: A single site getting corrupted, hacked, accidentally edited, or broken by a bad update.
Every WordPress site on WebOps gets its own daily backup, captured as an individual archive of files plus database. Pre-update snapshots are also taken automatically before any plugin, theme, or core update we apply.
- Schedule: Daily, plus on every managed update
- Scope: One site at a time, files + database + configuration
- Restore time: Minutes, for backups within the 30-day window
- Best for: "Restore my site to yesterday" or "roll back the plugin update we did this morning"
This is the layer that handles 95% of real-world recovery requests. Full details in our WordPress Backups guide.
Layer 2: Plesk Account Backups
What it protects against: A whole hosting account needing to be recreated, migrated, or moved between servers.
The hosting control panel (Plesk) creates its own daily backup of the entire account, capturing everything tied to your hosting subscription as a single restorable bundle:
- All websites and subdomains under the account
- SSL/TLS certificates
- DNS zone configuration
- Email accounts and stored messages
- FTP and SSH users
- Cron jobs and scheduled tasks
- PHP settings, web server configuration, and all custom rules
Plesk backups are how we move accounts cleanly between servers (during migrations or fleet upgrades) and how we rebuild an account end-to-end if something at the account level breaks. They live on separate storage from the live server, so a problem on the hosting server itself does not take the backup with it.
Layer 3: Full Server Snapshots
What it protects against: A server-level disaster: hardware failure, file system corruption, ransomware affecting an entire server, or a data center incident.
The infrastructure layer takes a daily snapshot of the entire server, kernel, file system, databases, and all sites at once. This is the deepest backup we run and the slowest to restore from, but it is the one that lets us recover from problems too severe for the other layers to address.
- Schedule: Daily, retained for the lifetime of the server
- Scope: The entire server, every file, every database, every configuration file
- Restore time: Hours (full server rebuild) or minutes (file-level retrieval from a snapshot)
- Best for: "The whole server died" or "rebuild this server in another data center"
Server snapshots are stored offsite, in a different facility from the live servers. This is the layer that protects against losing a data center entirely, and it is the backup of last resort when the other two layers cannot help.
How the Layers Work Together
| Failure Type | Recovered From | Typical Restore Time |
|---|---|---|
| Plugin update broke a single site | Layer 1 (pre-update snapshot) | Minutes |
| Client deleted a folder of media | Layer 1 (file-level restore) | Within 1 hour |
| WooCommerce database corruption | Layer 1 (database-only restore) | Within 1 hour |
| Whole hosting account gone (rare) | Layer 2 (Plesk account restore) | 1 to 3 hours |
| Need to migrate a site to a new server | Layer 2 (Plesk account migration) | 2 to 6 hours |
| Server hardware failure | Layer 3 (snapshot rebuild) | 4 to 12 hours |
| Data center loss (worst case) | Layer 3 (offsite snapshot to new region) | Same day |
Backup Security
- Encryption at rest: backups are stored encrypted on backup storage, not as plain files
- Encryption in transit: data is encrypted as it moves from production servers to backup storage
- Isolated storage: backups live on different systems than the live servers, so a compromise of a live server does not give an attacker access to the backups
- Integrity checks: backup completion is monitored, and we periodically run test restores on sample sites to verify backups can actually be used
You Never Have to Configure Anything
Backups are part of the platform, not an add-on. You don't:
- Buy a backup plan
- Install a backup plugin
- Configure schedules
- Monitor backup success or failure
- Manage storage quotas
- Run test restores yourself
We handle all of it. When you need something restored, you open a ticket and tell us what to recover. We pick the right layer, run the restore, and confirm with you before touching anything live.
Need a Restore?
Email support [at] webops [dot] host or submit a support ticket with the details of what you need recovered (a date, a file, a site, a database). Our team is available 9am-5pm, 7 days a week, with 24/7 emergency support for production-down incidents.
