One of the big differences between static sites and CMS sites is the maintenance,
and the day to day changes primarily happen on a Web server with a CMS, as
opposed to some static site files that are on your local computer, that you can
change, and then you FTP a copy of those up to the Web server.
What that means is if something very bad happens, you don't automatically have a
backup of your current Web site.
In static HTML land, you could have a copy of the site on your local computer,
which you can then copy up to the Web server.
However, with a CMS, all of the changes are usually made directly on the server,
so you have no local backup, unless you make one.
Your Web host should be making daily backups at a minimum, and preferably at
least a daily backup, and a weekly backup.
These backups should contain your entire Joomla
site, the files, and the database, and it will hopefully also contain other
account settings, like e-mail accounts or whatever.
Those backups may also be stored on the server,
so periodically be sure you make an offsite backup as well.
Akeeba Backup is great for making backups whenever you wish.
You can also configure it to run periodically, and write the backup to
offsite storage, like Amazon S3 storage, or wherever else you'd like to store your files.
That configuration is beyond the scope of the course, but it's explained in
detail on Akeeba Backup Web site.
I've told you, their documentation is absolutely fabulous, and he will walk you
through the process of having a backup written out to an offsite server.
Don't assume that your hosts make backups that you can access.
All hosts do in fact make backups, but more often than not, those backups are
not necessarily available to their Web hosting clients.
They use these backups in case something bad happens to the server, like
it catches fire or something, and that happens more frequently than you would realize.
But there's no guarantee that the backups are made regularly, and there is no
guarantee that those backups may be available to you, particularly if you just
happen to mess something up, or if your site gets hacked.
Be sure you have a backup talk with your Web host.
Ask how long it would take to restore site from backup if something bad did happen,
so you get a sense of how long your site would be down if that happened.
Make sure any backups are available to you as well.
Find out how many backups they are making, and how often they're making them.
Don't hesitate to move Web hosts if the answers aren't adequate for you.
I know it's hard leaving a host you may have loved for many, many years, but you
need to protect your Web site with good backups, and great service.
Do a little bit of homework now, and you will save yourself a ton of heartache later.
Your backups are going to save you one day. Trust me on this.