We are sometimes asked about data backups and what happens if you accidentally delete data such as website content or registration records.
Website content
Most website content is managed by the display of 'widgets'. Widgets are content blocks that allow you to select the content type such as Text, Image, YouTube video, etc. In almost all instances other than for the Text widget, the widget is simply a container for data being stored elsewhere. For example, the Image widget is simply displaying an image from your image repository (gallery) on a page. Deleting the widget does not delete the underlying image. You can safely delete the widget and easily reinstate it by reselecting the image from your gallery. For the Text widget, since text is typed directly into the widget, it will be lost if you subsequently delete the widget. Therefore, if you have lengthy articles or textual content that may be cumbersome for you to recreate, we recommend drafting these in another application such as Word or Google Docs so you can keep your own back-up of your text.
Note that the Sporty system does perform automatic backups. These backups would require a Sporty developer with appropriate login access credentials to restore for you (more information regarding backups is at the bottom of this article).
Registration records
If you delete a registration record, the data cannot be recovered by you, nor by our helpdesk or operational staff. However, a Sporty developer with appropriate login access credentials could technically restore of data after it was deleted (see section below).
Please remember that you or anyone else with login access to your database can export registration data to a CSV file and it is then beyond our control how you or they store that file or restrict access to it, including any local backups or copies of data that was subsequently deleted on the Sporty platform. If an export was performed by you prior to a registration record being deleted, the relevant data will remain in the export file.
If you are contemplating permanent deletion of data, we encourage you to develop your own policy in relation to the way data is used and stored. You should also familiarise yourself with the Data Privacy Act 2020 and ensure that you only store data for as long as it is needed and for the purposes for which it was provided. If you are unsure, please obtain independent advice.
Automatic backups
The Sporty platform is hosted with Microsoft Azure and databases are protected by automatic backups. Full backups are taken every week, differential backups every day, and log backups every 5 minutes. After the first full backup, all further backups are scheduled automatically and managed silently in the background. Exact timing of full and differential backups is determined by the system to balance overall load. Backup files are stored in a geo-redundant storage account with read access (RA-GRS) to ensure their availability for disaster recovery purposes.
Point-in-time database restoration
Microsoft Azure also protects the Sporty platform databases with an automated 'point-in-time' database restoration system. This is available for the past 35 days. Point-in-time restoration allows Sporty to restore a database to any point in time within the retention period.
Together, the automated backup system and point-in-time restoration provides a way that protects databases from accidental corruption or deletion, whatever the cause. However, there will be a cost associated with the developer time needed to perform restoration work if it is required.
More reading: Data Security Advisory and Privacy Policy.