CMS Security Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide for WordPress®, Joomla!®, Drupal™, and Plone®

Additional Considerations

Before wrapping up this chapter, you must consider some loose ends that your disaster recovery plan should take into account. These are items that you may not think about, but are vital to your success.

E-mail System

E-mail is the lifeblood of many companies today. In fact, it's sometimes the only method you have to reach your clients. You might consider using an e-mail provider (such as Google Apps) to support your e-mail.

In any case, be sure that you have a good, solid — that means tested — plan to migrate your e-mail and systems in the event your host goes dark.

Where Does Your DNS Live?

While writing this chapter, the author received a phone call from a client whose hosting company literally shut its doors without warning. The customer service phone was gone, the primary site was gone, and the client was dead in the water. To make matters worse, the client did not have a backup of multiple sites, and the client's e-mail was gone.

This client had few options. On the encouraging side, however, the client's DNS is at a very large hosting company. With that, she could quickly get e-mail flowing again at a minimum. The client was able to point her DNS to a new host, set up e-mail, and start the journey of rebuilding her sites.

The moral of this story is that if her DNS had been living with the super low-cost hosting company, she would have been completely lost.

Where does your DNS live? You should park your domains with a large and healthy registrar. This ...