This advice applies only to schools hosting their own Firefly sites. Hosted customers have their sites backed up automatically and do not need to take any action.

It is essential not to underestimate the importance of ensuring that all your Firefly data is carefully backed up daily, as with time this will grow to include a large pool of vital school information, not to mention many hours of work. You should ensure that a rigorous and comprehensive backup solution is in place from the start, which covers all of the following data:

· Your Firefly SQL database (see http://lantern.fireflysolutions.co.uk/lantern/hints-and-tips/backup)

· Your resources directory (you will find the location of this in the Configuration tab > Resources and WebDav > Folder in Firefly.NET Manager on your Firefly server)

· Your Firefly installation directory (typically located at “C:\Program Files (x86)\Firefly.NET”)

We recommend that you backup to a physically separate device, if at all possible. Should your server suffer a physical failure, your backup is less likely to be compromised along with your live data. If you have your system set up to only retain backups for a limited period, we would strongly recommend setting this to no less than 7 days.

Note: It’s important to regularly test your backups and ensure that they work properly, perhaps by using them to restore Firefly on a spare server. Never assume that a backup file which exists is one which works!