Backups

Policy

All data directly managed by Lullabot must be backed up and encrypted. Individual team members can choose to back up their workstations. If they do, they must encrypt those backups.

Scope

This policy applies to all Lullabot employees and contractors.

Compliance

All Lullabot employees and contractors are responsible for backing up data in their possession.

Explanation and Implementation

Backups are by far the most overlooked or ignored, and arguably one of the most important parts of a computer system. They are overlooked because they are boring and provide no immediate benefit. But, when disaster hits it is too late. If you do not have backups then you are in trouble.

There are multiple levels of backups, each with their own merits and costs. These levels range from keeping a copy of a file in a different folder on your computer all the way up to fully automated, full disk backups to the Cloud. Which level is appropriate depends on the data in the backup, and ultimately how you answer the following question:

What would I do if my working copy of this data disappeared?

For many of us at Lullabot, much of our work lives on GitHub, Google Drive, Dropbox, or some other online service. In this case, our answer might be "I would download a new copy" or "I would revert to a previous revision" or "I would contact service X and ask them to restore the data" and that might be enough.

A good test is to ask yourself if you could be back up and running in half a day if you had to replace your computer. If it would take you longer then that to set up your apps, log in to things and download what you need, then you should have a backup of some kind.

Time Machine on macOS makes automated backups very easy with an external hard drive. Turn on Time Machine, and for the most part just forget about it and let it run. Even if most of your work is online, having Time Machine backups makes replacing a machine a much easier task. Instead of spending hours reinstalling applications and setting up preferences, you can start the restore process and come back to a ready-to-use machine. We recommend purchasing a hard drive that is at least two times the size of your existing drive.

Remember, you must enable encryption for your Time Machine backups, just as you do with your hard drive. This is enabled by default in recent macOS releases.

There isn't backup software as simple or as widely available as Time Machine for Windows or Linux workstations. If you use one of those operating systems and wish to back up your workstation, ask our team for current recommendations.