Single Server Setup

xslater

Hi,
I am thinking about switching my tiny installation from Runcloud to Enhance. Due to the fact, that I have a very small setup (<10 wordpress sites on one server ), I'm not sure which minimal setup would be sufficient. I've read about the various recommendations which clearly tell to have minimum 2 better 3 and eventually 4+ servers. Some of the arguments are clear to me.

But what about a single-server setup? All roles on one machine? What does it mean. Of course, no load balancing, no redundancy, etc. Are there any other architectural reasons? Security? Disaster Recovery?

Thanks four your comments,
Xaver

cPFence

xslater

Single server setup will work just fine for your use case. You’ve already got Hetzner’s great snapshot feature for full server recovery. For website backups, you can grab a cheap storage VPS from alphavps.com for 4 euro/month, or just use whatever cloud storage with the plug-in based backup you already have if it’s cheaper , both options will work well for your setup.

JohnB

xslater

Provider snapshots/images are not reliable backups. If the provider has an issue with their hardware, software, or suspend/delete your account by mistake you will not be able to use those snapshots.

For whatever reason lets say your VPS dies and snapshots are lost. How quickly can you restore everything? Seriously simulate that and see if the time required is acceptable to you. If it is, great! If not, try another approach. Whatever your solution is, just test it and see if really works.

You could have 1 CP server (low specs for 10 sites) and 1 backup server. If you completely lose a hosting server just add another node and restore sites to that new server and update DNS. Quick and easy. If you completely lose the CP server, your sites will still be up and Enhance support can help.

As for losing a backup server... you should always have 2 backups of important data (ie copy the Enhance backup folder to cloud storage). The 2 backups should not be physically near each other (natural disasters & datacenter fires) or controlled by the same provider (Ie don't host your backup server on Linode and then backup the files to Linode storage).

Vendoz

Hello and welcome here 🙂

You can do it if you host few websites! In my opinion you will need at least 2 servers, cause the backup server is essential for me (and enhance backup works very well!). I think for small environment 3 server are ideal, but 2 are enough. Just with "one mega server" I feel like saying that it becomes mandatory to have a provider that provides you snapshot backups.

The great thing about Enhance is the scalability, nothing stops you from starting with a few servers and then, after a while, adding more servers and moving website and services.

xslater

Vendoz
I see. Currently I'm doing daily machine backups with Hetzner and in addition all of my wordpress sites do a plug-in based backup to a foreign cloud storage. What does the enhance backup server provide in addition?

Andreas

You totally could. For backup, you would need to back up each website with a WP plugin.
I would suggest using a 3rd party service to backup your hosting accounts, like Wasabi or Backblaze.

With the suggested setup, this would give you 1 Enhance server to host everything, and backups are automated off-site/network.

xslater

Andreas
Thank four your reply. Yes plugin-based backups are in place. But I would like to have snapshots/backups from my complete machine (including all software and settings). Therefore I use the backup mechanism provided by Hetzner. Which is not offsite, for sure.

Vendoz

xslater Hetzner backups are perfect!

Enhance backups gives you speed, cause rsync is very fast and really efficent! Backup plugins work too, i used them before moving here, but now i only use enhance ones, cause are better in every ways for me!

Andreas

xslater Honestly, I would get 1 more VPS and add it to Enhance cluster for backups. It works very nice.

xslater

Sorry - maybe I had a wrong understanding. Checked the docs now 🙂

So enhance "backup" means "website backup" not "server backup", right? So in my case wordpress... For the backup of the machines, something else has to be established. right or wrong?

Andreas

No worries, when we talk about Enhance backup system, we are referring to backing up hosting accounts.
That backup system generally means setting up a server (vps/dedicated), adding it to the Enhance cluster, and giving it the backup role.

By using this setup, all your hosting accounts will get backed up to that Backup server. You can customize when to backup and how often o backup.

I hope this is much clearer. I apologize if I was not earlier.

If you have more questions, please feel free to ask

xslater

JohnB
Thanks JohnB, very good points.

Regards to a possible "provider issue" / "no access to snapshots anymore": Understood. But this scenario would be the same, even if a enhance backup service is in place. Usually with the same provider - probably in the same datacenter - maybe on the same hardware. If they suspend my account, all my enhance cluster nodes would be gone.

For this scenario, an offsite backup of virtual machines would be convenient. Or a quick re-setup of the whole infrastructure anywhere else. I do not have a solution for this. So, how to setup a "lost" machine as quick as possible somewhere else. Image backup? Reproducible Ansible configuration, ... I have to check,

Having a enhance backup server to quickly backup and restore sites, if anything goes wrong with the software is a plus indeed.

cPFence

xslater

You can back up your backups server to another datacenter using this free script:
https://community.enhance.com/d/2564-script-backup-restore-your-enhance-v12-backup-server

Vendoz

xslater Usually with the same provider - probably in the same datacenter - maybe on the same hardware. If they suspend my account, all my enhance cluster nodes would be gone.

You should have different provider in different datacenter, at least for backup server.

In addition, from the next update we should be able to upload enhance backups from another estate, so even if you will lose your mega server, you will prepare another server anyway, but it would be probably faster to restore vs single site backup restore with a plugin.