Posted by: Mike Isaacs
04 August 2025
When your Umbraco platform is business-critical, the ability to recover quickly from outages or data loss is as important as day-to-day performance. This guide explores what disaster recovery (DR) means for Umbraco hosting, how backup frequency affects recovery time, and compares Azure Umbraco hosting with Umbraco Cloud.
At a glance
- What does disaster recovery mean for Umbraco hosting, and why does it matter
- Best practices for Umbraco backup frequency and testing
- Azure Umbraco hosting vs Umbraco Cloud disaster recovery
- Real-world recovery scenarios and ROI insights
- How Growcreate delivers enterprise-ready DR and backups for Umbraco
Table of contents
- What is disaster recovery for Umbraco hosting?
- How often should you back up an Umbraco site?
- Azure Umbraco hosting vs Umbraco Cloud for disaster recovery
- Real-world scenarios
- ROI and operational impact
- How Growcreate delivers DR and backups for Umbraco
What is disaster recovery for Umbraco hosting?
Disaster recovery (DR) is the set of processes and infrastructure that ensures your Umbraco platform is restored quickly after an outage, cyberattack or hardware failure.
For Umbraco hosting, DR typically includes:
- Automated backups of site files, database and media library
- Geo-redundant storage to ensure copies are available in different regions
- Failover environments that can be activated when primary systems fail
- Tested recovery plans to ensure predictable restoration times
Without a robust DR strategy, outages can result in hours or days of downtime, data loss and reputational damage.
How often should you back up an Umbraco site?
The backup frequency directly affects the amount of data you risk losing (Recovery Point Objective) and the speed at which you can restore service (Recovery Time Objective).
Best practice guidelines:
- Enterprise sites: Hourly or every few hours for database backups; daily media backups.
- Mid-sized corporate sites: Daily database and file backups; weekly media backups.
- Campaign or e-commerce sites: Hourly backups during peak trading or traffic periods.
Equally important is testing backups. A backup is only useful if your agency or managed service provider (MSP) can restore your solution quickly without corrupting content or code.
Azure Umbraco hosting vs Umbraco Cloud for disaster recovery
Growcreate manages both Azure Umbraco hosting and Umbraco Cloud environments. Each offers DR features suitable for different scenarios.
Feature comparison
| Attribute | Azure Umbraco Hosting | Umbraco Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Backup frequency | Configurable: hourly, daily, weekly | Automated daily backups included in plan |
| Restore options | Point-in-time database restore, file-level restore | Managed restore process for full site or content |
| Disaster recovery | Full geo-redundant failover environments | Platform-managed recovery in case of infrastructure failure |
| Testing and validation | Custom DR drills, staging restore environments | Built-in backup restore testing via Umbraco Deploy |
Real-world scenarios
1. Ransomware recovery
A financial services Umbraco platform suffered a database lockout due to a ransomware attack. Azure's point-in-time restore feature allowed the database to be rolled back 20 minutes prior to the attack, thereby avoiding data loss and restoring service within an hour.
2. Global outage failover
A manufacturing client’s primary EU Azure region experienced a service interruption. Geo-redundant hosting automatically failed over to UK South, maintaining 99.99% uptime for critical internal tools.
3. Charity site on Umbraco Cloud
A charity using Umbraco Cloud restored their site in under 30 minutes after a developer accidentally deleted content. Automated daily backups and the managed restore process meant no data loss.
ROI and operational impact
| Business Factor | Azure Umbraco Hosting | Umbraco Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Cost control | Flexible backup schedules balance cost vs risk | Fixed daily backups included in subscription |
| Recovery speed | Point-in-time restore can cut recovery to minutes | Managed restore process with predictable turnaround |
| Compliance | Full audit trails and cross-region storage options | Managed compliance within Umbraco Cloud framework |
| Team workload | Requires planning or managed service for DR strategy | Fully managed backups and restores reduce team overhead |
| Business continuity | Enterprise-grade SLAs protect revenue and reputation | Ideal for organisations without internal DevOps resources |
How Growcreate delivers DR and backups for Umbraco
- Geo-redundant backup strategy: Multiple Azure regions to ensure availability.
- Custom backup frequency: Configurable to match business criticality (hourly to weekly).
- Disaster recovery planning: Documented RTO/RPO aligned with SLAs.
- Regular testing: Staging restores to ensure integrity and recovery speed.
- 24/7 SLA-backed support: Engineering response to incidents around the clock.
Book a quick call to see how disaster recovery and smart backup strategies in Umbraco hosting can protect uptime, data integrity and ROI.
FAQs
For enterprise platforms, hourly or daily database backups are recommended, with weekly or daily media backups depending on content churn.
Yes, Umbraco Cloud includes automated daily backups and a managed restore process. For more granular control and geo-failover, Azure hosting offers additional options.
Even small outages can cost thousands in lost transactions and reputational damage. Investing in DR and backups mitigates risk and protects revenue.
Yes, we design hybrid Umbraco Cloud + Azure environments with unified backup and recovery workflows.