When a virtual server is utilizing the host systems network, and receives an independent local IP via DHCP from your router it appears to be an actual computer form the outside world. If a backup of the VDI is kept regularly it can simply replace a damaged, or hacked system in the time it takes to copy a file. Virtual servers exist as a single VDI file, therefore for blogs that utilize database backends simply copy your backup server VDI image, boot, then use your phpmyadmin to update your mysql databases from your backups; obviously this entails keeping mysql database backups. For more information about mysql backups utilizing automated cron scripts see:
http://www.bgevolution.com/blog/index.php/cron-server-backup-scripts/
Share, Enjoy, and Support:
It is intuitive to spread out different servers across several machines. If one machine goes down it won’t take down all your services. I feel that the bare minimum is 2 machines. One for at least the web server, and the other for at least a backup of the servers files. I use two machines at the moment, 1 for the webserver, and the other for my mail server. I also use the mail server to backup my server files as said above. As described in a latter post, automatic backing up of a web server can be achived with two simple bash script run by cron.
http://www.bgevolution.com/blog/index.php/cron-server-backup-scripts/
I would like to have an additional computer running the Mysql server. This would slightly minimize down time associated with the need for an occasional fresh OS install 
Share, Enjoy, and Support:
I use three scripts that completely backup my entire server. Two scripts I place in my cron.hourly folder, and one I use in my cron.daily. For hourly backup I export all my databases, and then transfer them via an automated ssh connection to another computer on my local area network. For Mysql database export I use a wonderful script that I found on sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/. It has a couple of configurations, and all is self explanatory when you open the file in a text editor. Once your done editing the file to suit your mysql parameters, and desired backup folder location, just plop the file in your /etc/cron.hourly to have it run every hour. Then you can use ssh to transfer the mysql backup folder to another computer!! Make a simple script as follows:
#!/bin/bash
scp /home/user/mysqlbackup/* user@othercomputerip:mysqlbackup/
Use this format to make an automated script to transfer your mysqlbackup folder to another computer via ssh. As with the mysql export script, when your done with the ssh transfer script just plop it in your /etc/cron.hourly folder for automated hourly operation.
I also use a daily backup script to transfer, via ssh, my entire website directory. Since I have about 10 GB on the directory, due to the file repository, the ssh over LAN connection comes in handy due to its relatively high speed. Getting speed around 7.7 Mb/s the entire root server directory is backed up in about 15 minutes. To do this just use the same formatting as the ssh transfer script above, but set the directory to be your root server directory. You can place the script in your /etc/cron.daily folder, or any other for that matter
Share, Enjoy, and Support:
