Included backup offers

## Included backup offers

IllusionCloud includes automated backups for every VPS to protect you from data loss.  Below are the backup options typically included with VPS and dedicated server plans.

### Standard automatic backups
* **Daily snapshot** – Your server’s system disk (excluding additional disks) is automatically backed up once every 24 hours.  OVHcloud’s VPS documentation explains that a backup of your VPS is scheduled daily over a rolling 7‑day period, exported and replicated three times within the same data centre before being made available in the control panel【37293985120049†L574-L592】.
* **Seven‑day retention** – The control panel retains up to seven daily restore points.  If something goes wrong, you can choose one of these restore points to roll back your VPS to a previous state.
* **Included with your plan** – Daily automatic backups are a free feature of the VPS plan【37293985120049†L730-L737】.  There is no extra charge for standard backup, and you can restore your VPS with a few clicks via the management portal.

### Premium and optional backup features
* **Premium automatic backup** – For added flexibility, some providers offer a premium backup option that lets you restore from snapshots up to a week old and stores the backups in secure external storage【37293985120049†L738-L742】.  This is useful if you need longer retention or off‑site redundancy.
* **On‑demand snapshots** – Manual snapshots allow you to capture the exact state of your server before performing updates or making major changes.  OVHcloud notes that snapshots are instant backups that you can create and restore at any time【37293985120049†L746-L748】.
* **External storage or cloud backup** – If your application stores large amounts of data on additional disks, consider using external storage or cloud backup.  Premium backup services often replicate data to a separate, secure space so that you can recover it even if the primary server fails【37293985120049†L738-L742】.

### How the backup process works
1. **Scheduling** – The system takes a snapshot of your VPS once per day.  The snapshot includes the system disk and configuration data but not optional additional disks or volumes.
2. **Replication** – Each backup is exported and replicated multiple times (three copies) within the same data centre to protect against hardware failure【37293985120049†L590-L592】.
3. **Restore via control panel** – You can restore your server from any available restore point through the client control panel.  Restores replace the current system disk with the selected backup image; data on optional additional disks remains unchanged.
4. **Retention policy** – Old backups are rotated after seven days, ensuring that you always have recent restore points while conserving storage space.

### Best practices
* **Regular testing** – Periodically test the restore process to ensure backups work as expected.  Perform test restores to a staging server so that you understand how long a recovery will take and can verify data integrity.
* **Supplemental backups** – Standard automatic backups are sufficient for many use cases, but for mission‑critical workloads you should also implement your own backup strategy.  Consider storing database dumps, configuration files or user uploads separately (for example, using object storage) to achieve off‑site redundancy.
* **Plan for longer retention** – If you need to keep backups for more than seven days (for compliance or auditing), upgrade to a premium backup plan or set up your own backup solution that stores archives for as long as required.