Learn · Data and content
You restore one. A backup nobody has ever restored is a file, not a backup. Pick a date, restore it somewhere that is not production, and open the result to check the data is actually there and readable. Until you have done that once, you do not have a backup, you have a hope.
The discoveries are dull and fatal. The backup ran but excluded uploaded files. It captured the database and not the configuration the application needs to start. It has been failing silently for two months because a credential rotated and nothing was watching.
Do it once a quarter and write down how long it took. That number is your real recovery time, and it is usually several times longer than anyone guessed when they were asked.
Updated September 2026
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Backups protect you from data loss, whether from a mistake, a failure, a hack, or ransomware. Without them, a single bad event can wipe out your site, database, and customer data permanently. How often depends on how much data you can afford to lose: daily is a common minimum, more for busy systems.
A rollback is reverting to the previous working version when a new deployment causes a problem. Instead of scrambling to fix a live issue, you switch back to the last good version in seconds, restoring service while you investigate calmly. The ability to roll back fast is a core safety net.
A migration is a recorded, repeatable change to the shape of a database: adding a column, splitting a table, changing a type. It is written as code and applied in order, so the same change runs identically on a developer's machine, on staging, and in production.