Does anyone know of any good backup utilities to use with a Silverstripe site. I'm after something that makes it as easy as possible for clients to create regular backups on their own since if they have to to go into cPanel or PHPAdmin it will never get done.

My ideal solution would be a module similar to a Joomla! component named JoomlaPack.

this is a nice idea, there is a module create by Nicolaas which is called mysqldump. which enables you to get a dump of your database, sometimes we can have another module which also can work with the mysqldump, and which archives the codes, of the website.

http://www.silverstripe.org/mysqldump/

Any thoughts about my idea?

Thank you. That module looks promising and I'll be sure to keep an eye on it.

You're right that it would make a good piece to start with for building something as full featured as JoomlaPack!.

sometimes we can join and code up a module, are you good at PHP, and stuff? and I would like to hear about others thoughts about this too.

I've got what I think is a solid handle on basic programming with PHP but most of what I've done has been making modifications to existing code. I don't have any experience with anything as extensive as building a module.

I'd be interested in contributing if I can be useful but won't have the time for at least a few months. I have several projects going at the moment that will keep me too busy until then.

As far as ideas for the module go I think it's primary focus should be on getting non-technical users to maintain up to date backups and anything that doesn't contribute to that end should be considered secondary. What this means to me is that the essential qualities would be as follows:

• Simple to use: user should have to do as little as possible to create and save a backup. I envision a single button to create the backup which would be some kind of compressed package so they don't have to manage multiple files. Another button would let them download the latest backup for archives. A nice touch would be a listing of recent backups and when they were created. I would place all of this in the admin panel in a section listed with 'Content', 'Comments', 'Security' etc.

• Reminders: something that would pop up an alert at regular intervals, once a week, once a month, etc., since the user can't always be counted on to remember on their own.
  

thanks for the idea, I will put my head more into this, and let you know.