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Jun 15, 2026

AtoM Heratio — Backup Strategy Feature Overview

Product: AtoM Heratio Framework v2.8.2 Component: Backup & Restore (ahgBackupPlugin) Date: 16 March 2026 Author: The Archive and Heritage Group (Pty) Ltd

What It Does

AtoM Heratio provides a comprehensive backup and restore system for archival data, digital objects, plugins, and framework code. The system supports full, incremental, and scheduled backups with configurable retention policies and email notifications.

Key Features

Backup Types

  • Full Backup — complete snapshot of all selected components (database, uploads, plugins, framework, Fuseki triplestore)
  • Incremental Backup — captures only files changed since the last full backup; database is always dumped fully
  • Database Only — fast MySQL dump for daily use
  • 5 Presets — db, atom_base, content, ahg, full — for one-click backup creation

Scheduled Backups

  • Frequency options — hourly, daily, weekly, monthly
  • Configurable time — set the hour and minute for each schedule
  • Day selection — day of week (weekly) or day of month (monthly)
  • Per-schedule retention — independent retention period per schedule
  • Component selection — choose which components each schedule includes
  • Active/paused toggle — enable or disable schedules without deleting them
  • CLI execution — php symfony backup:run-scheduled checks and runs due schedules
  • Cron integration — single hourly cron entry drives all schedules

Restore Capabilities

  • Restore from list — select any backup from the admin panel
  • Restore from upload — upload a backup file (.tar.gz, .sql.gz, .zip) and restore
  • Selective restore — choose which components to restore (database, uploads, plugins, framework)
  • Safety rollback — original files backed up before restoration; rolled back on failure
  • Fuseki triplestore — RDF data backup and restore via N-Quads export

Email Notifications

  • Success/failure alerts — configurable per event type
  • Server details — includes backup ID, size, hostname, timestamp
  • Error reporting — failure notifications include the error message

Administration

  • Web UI — full admin panel at Admin > Backup & Restore
  • Schedule management — create, toggle, delete schedules from the web interface
  • Storage dashboard — backup count, total size, retention policy
  • Database connection test — verify MySQL connectivity from the admin panel
  • Download backups — download individual components or full ZIP archives

Backup Strategy Recommendations

Strategy Schedule Type Retention
Minimal Daily at 02:00 Database only 30 days
Standard Daily DB + Weekly full Mixed 90 days
Production Daily incremental + Weekly full + Monthly archive Mixed 365 days

Technical Requirements

  • Server: PHP 8.3, MySQL 8, tar, gzip, zip
  • Cron: System cron for scheduled execution
  • Storage: Sufficient disk space for retention period (default: /var/backups/atom)
  • Email: PHP mail() function for notifications (optional)

Who Benefits

  • System administrators — automated backup management without manual intervention
  • Archival institutions — compliance with data retention and disaster recovery policies
  • IT teams — predictable backup schedules with email alerting
  • Auditors — complete backup history with timestamps and component details

For detailed usage instructions, see Admin > Help Center > Backup & Restore. For technical documentation, see the ahgBackupPlugin Technical Reference.