Oh No! Your Database is Ruined! What’s Your Backup Plan?

Friday, October 12th, 2012
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You knew it might happen one day. You just hoped it wouldn’t!  There you were, breezing through your regular tasks…. and BANG!  You mistakenly imported 300 customers incorrectly, and changed their customer type. Oh no! Now what?

Although Nexternal backups your data every six hours, simply restoring a database to a previous state can have unintended consequences, especially if orders have been placed or other data elements changed since you made your boo-boo. Because of this, we typically only restore a database in the event of a dire emergency. One way to mitigate such occurrences is to export your data before you perform and major operation such as an import that updates existing records.

Create the habit of exporting data before performing any import. This could be your customer list, product data, pricing, category structure, etc.  Should you encounter a data problem, you are primed to handle it as gracefully and quickly as possible.  Hopefully, you will never need to use it! “…there’s no harm in hoping for the best, as long as you are prepared for the worst.” — Stephen King.

Lanette Willis is a Senior Account Manager at Nexternal. Before joining Nexternal she spent nearly a decade working in market research and professional services marketing, before running her own successful eCommerce apparel business. Lanette is passionate about helping people and businesses thrive.