Friday, March 31, is a World Backup Day. The date is not accidental - it has been assumed that on April Fools’ Day, no one wants to discover that potential data loss wasn't a simple hoax.

On this day, every cybersecurity specialist will urge to make backups. But for now, let's focus on some specific kind of data that usually is overlooked and forgotten… but should be the first to be protected. Let’s see what it is all about.

DevOps backup - a step towards shifting left

If an organization uses DevOps tools like Jira or version control systems like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, the hosted source code as intellectual property is probably the most valuable asset inside this company - a team spent thousands of hours (and money) to write, support, and improve projects. The same is true for the Jira data. Around 70% of DevOps teams release code continuously, even once a day. For most organizations, losing such data and the effects of the work of thousands of developers can lead to devastating consequences, unimaginable costs, and often even bankruptcy. 

According to “The GitLab 2022 Global DevSecOps Survey,” conducted by GitLab, while more organizations are shifting left and building security ownership among entire DevOps teams, concern about security has never been higher. 43% of security professionals feel “somewhat” or “very” unprepared for the future. And let’s see what it can bring.

Top reasons to consider DevOps backup

Until recently, one of the hardest parts of being a leader was convincing the team and superiors that even if the code is hosted within such reliable companies as GitHub, GitLab, or Atlassian, it might get lost or be unavailable. Atlassian’s infamous outage from last year, which lasted over two weeks and impacted hundreds of organizations paralyzing their access to Jira, proved that this problem should be addressed and companies should have a “backup plan” to limit the impact of service and workflow interruptions.

Ransomware does not bypass DevOps as well, and it is predicted that an attack attempt will occur every 11 seconds this year. Specialists from Cybersecurity Ventures estimate that by 2025, cyberattacks will cost the company $10 trillion annually. Fortunately, awareness of attacks against cloud services, and SaaS tools, including GitHub, GitLab, and Atlassian products, is already well established, and companies are starting to implement solutions to mitigate attacks and minimize their effects. 

Some of the other reasons are human mistakes (the undeniable "leader" among cyberthreats), hardware failures, and software errors.

But aside from the issue of risks, legal issues must be mentioned. Having software to back up critical data, including source code, projects, and DevOps tools, is one of the requirements of every respected security certification process (such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001). 

The need for data protection, backup, and long-term retention is also enshrined in the shared responsibility models that all cloud service providers operate on, including GitHub, GitLab, and Atlassian. 

DevOps backup cheat sheet

Unfortunately, so far, IT pros haven’t got dedicated tools for DevOps backup. They tried to use scripts or a traditional file backup of their local machines. It turned out to be both time- and cost-consuming and didn't give any guarantee to restore data. 

Automatic backup of DevOps tools should provide industry-specific functionalities, derived from the best practices of traditional backup. It should give full data coverage, and the possibility to make full, incremental, and differential copies based on different rotation schemes and schedules. It should provide DevOps with best-in-class security features - i.e. encryption, SAML integration, and ransomware protection. But most importantly, it should enable them to instant, granular restore for the needs of everyday operations and Disaster Recovery technologies in the event of major failures, including the possibility of cross-recovery for immediate data migration between service providers (GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket). And it all - automated, maintenance-free in one central management and monitoring console.

On the occasion of World Backup Day, specialists from GitProtect.io, a DevOps backup software provider, have prepared a short summary of the features that should be taken into account when choosing software for DevOps backup - considering  GitLab backup as an example yet applicable to most tools, including GitHub, Bitbucket or Jira.

Source: GitLab backup best practices

World Backup Day pledge 

Now, let’s paraphrase the World Backup Day pledge: “I solemnly swear to backup my important GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Jira data on March 31st. #WorldBackupDay”. I will also tell my friends and family about World Backup Day - Real friends don't let friends go without a DevOps backup”.

And that's why GitProtect.io DevOps Backup has a special discount - 95% off for the first month with the BACKUPDAY95 promo code, to be used after the free trial period - try it out.

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Website: https://gitprotect.io/