Backups and Disaster Recovery for Your Odoo System
Short answer: A proper backup plan for Odoo means regular, automated backups stored somewhere other than the server itself, tested by actually restoring them, with a clear answer to how much data you could lose and how long recovery would take. Many companies discover their backup plan does not work at the exact moment they need it.
Questions worth asking your hosting provider
- How often are backups taken, and how long are they kept?
- Are backups stored in a different physical location from the live server?
- Has a restore ever actually been tested, or only the backup itself?
- What is the realistic time to restore service if the server fails completely?
Two numbers worth knowing
Recovery point objective is how much data you could afford to lose, measured in time: if backups run nightly, you could lose up to a day's transactions. Recovery time objective is how long you can afford to be down. Neither number should be guessed after an incident; both should be agreed in advance and match what the business can actually tolerate.
| Measure | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Recovery point objective (RPO) | How much data you could afford to lose, measured in time | With nightly backups you could lose up to one day of transactions |
| Recovery time objective (RTO) | How long the business can afford to be down | Agreed in advance with your provider, not guessed after an incident |
What is often missed?
- Backups that exist but were never test-restored, so nobody knows if they actually work.
- Custom code and file attachments backed up separately from the database, so a restore is incomplete.
- No written procedure for who does what in an outage, so the first hour is spent figuring out whom to call.
Frequently asked questions
Who is responsible for backups, us or our hosting provider?
This should be explicit in your hosting agreement; "the provider handles it" is not enough without knowing exactly what that includes.
How often should backups actually run?
Daily is common for most businesses; higher-transaction operations may need more frequent backups to keep data loss acceptable.
Should we keep our own copy of backups, separate from the hosting provider?
It is a reasonable extra safeguard, especially for critical data, and protects you if the hosting relationship itself ends.
Know your recovery plan before you need it
ExtraMile reviews and sets up backup and recovery procedures for Odoo systems it hosts or supports.
Ask about backups for your Odoo system or message us on WhatsApp: Egypt · Gulf
This article was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed and edited by Mohamed El-Baddaly, Chairman of ExtraMile Business Solutions.