[RetailEdge Moderator]

RetailEdge currently does not have an automated way of sending backup files to an off-site location. This is primarily because there are many services that do this already (Carbonite, etc.). If you are going to use an off-site backup service, you can backup the actual RetailEdge database files but we recommend that you backup a RetailEdge backup file instead.

Users should be performing a RetailEdge backup every night and then take it off-site (automated or otherwise). After a closing RetailEdge will prompt the user when exiting the program to backup the data files. The backup directory from the last backup will be the default and you only need to push a couple of buttons to be done.

Doing a RetailEdge backup does a few things that copying the data files directly won't do.

1. It compresses all the data files into one backup file. As databases get larger with more data this compression can be significant. So you would be saving room on your remote server.

2. It is a separate file. When RetailEdge is open it can hold onto or lock the data files and not allow a backup routine to properly copy the file to the remote server. If you are backing up the separate backup file, this problem won't occur.

3. It allows for incremental backups. Typically when users are backing up the data through the RetailEdge backup process, they should be creating incremental backups. Something like Even/Odd days or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. This allows us if there is a problem with a backup file to go back to previous days. Database files can be corrupted over time and we have seen restored backups have one or more files that were bad when restored and had to go back to a previous day's backup to get a good copy.

With off-site backups MAKE SURE that you confirm that the data is being properly copied to your server periodically. We recently had one customer whose computer crashed and their off-site backup had not been working for over a month.