backup the backup - a question to the responsibles for this website

[Juan Petry]

remains of tombstones in an abandoned cemetery in Spain (about 160 years old)

hello team,

after enjoying the community of IUOMA for half a year i like to ask a question which may lead to a discussion. i did not found another location than "discussion" and maybe i am wrong, so you are free to help me out where is the right place to discuss this topic.

after 40 years if living and working in the it world i return more and more to my mantra designed and used in my early computer workshops and lectures: "if you want to loose the information definetly, store it!". Said this i focused on the wired idea that storing information on a disk, later hard disk, later cd, later dvd, later cloud.... would mean anything than loosing the data further or later.

for sure some of the well-glued collages will stay for the next 250 years... some others not. going with the nature loosing information is not a bad thing in general. it gives space to new ideas. but on a short run a kind of livespan of an information is useful (lets say 2 generations or 3).

so my questions: it there any exit-strategy to leave ning? or at least to be independent from it? is all the data stored in accessible backups OUTSIDE if the ning cloud? is this backup ever tested? is there any strategy to transform the data in other storage - technologies? is there any workflow from ning to print-outs?

for sure it is a more technical issue and not a discussion of wishes and hopes. from the point of some members not attached to it the question remains: how safe is my input in regards to accessability?

thanks for some reply...

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

Hi, Juan.

Most likely, if we started discussing the availability of a backup copy of this site, we should start creating this backup copy. Why not?

[Juan Petry]

hi Ilya, thanks for your reply. i think first of all it is a question for the IUOMA website team. in respect to the property rights of the content. than we might go further and offer help to support their strategies. i am not familar with the ning world and do not know which offer exist to store backups outside of the ning world or how to manage a migration to other platforms like joomla or typo3. lets see the response of the team. and thanks to you for your offer to support solutions.

[William M]

i suspect ruud would know the answer about backups. it appears that at least some of it is backed up on the wayback machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/iuoma

[Ruud Janssen]

The Way Back machine back-up the complete website bit is about 1/2 year behhind.

I used to make backups of the data too, but that became too big to handle.

I archived everything of my own data since I work digital (that is since the early 80-ies).

Actually I teach students too about back-up strategies of digital data's and datastorage.

[Juan Petry]

hello ruud,

thanks for insights. is there no way to backup in raw format like csv or sql whats hosted in ning cloud? we should think about a "way-out" to backup not only the data. it seems to be useful for me to backup the functionality for all the involved artists as well...

best juan

ps.: if you teach this, great. since many years in professional environments we use 3 physical independent solutions in 3 different physical locations...

[Ruud Janssen]

NING did support the JSON formats for the backup.

I have thise saved from the beginning years.

Now they want evenybody move to NING version3

Which would mean the hosting costs for such a network would triple.

Don't think that would work. Not enough sponsors to finance that I am afraid

Also want to keep this platform add-free.

[Juan Petry]

hello ruud, thanks for your reply. have a look at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/import-from-ning/ as a possible destination. maybe you find some migration-experts here or it professionals supporting some tests. decide you. i am willing to support this trials and to be involved. i am running managed servers in datacenters and use wp a lot. but never migrated ning to wp.

[Sarah Roe]

Thank you Ruud, for not wanting to go with ads to finance. As a user for only a couple of months, I feel awkward inserting my opinion - but my first thought is that if it cost more money to back up or to migrate to a different user-friendly format, could a fundraiser being more visible than just the donation link help? For one, I have been leaving an intention to donate on the table time after time, I admit with apologies. Also, I'm starting to love the way this website is work to navigate and has so many hidden treasures - because it's not about the website, it's about the mail and the art and frankly most of the time I run in to something that makes me stop being on the website and pick up a pen or a glue stick within a half hour. Something about it not being easy to scroll.