Our mission for this plugin is simple: Every WordPress should backup.

Version 1 of AWB was released in Dec 09. It was a major breakthrough at the time. It was the only WordPress plugin that allowed for automatic backup of your entire WordPress site to an external source, in our case Amazon S3 servers. We’ve been downloaded a few thousand times and have gotten great feedback from the WordPress community. We consider it a fantastic start.

For the last few months, we’ve been working on the next version of the plugin. This new version is fantastic. It brings a few key features that will make the lives of WordPress users much easier.

1. Automatic Restore

The key function of AWB is to help you have peace of mind that your WordPress website is safe and have confidence that when disaster does strike you’ll be able to get back to normal within minutes, not hours, days or weeks.

The plugin was pretty good at doing the backup part of the job but restoring a website still required you to have some technical expertise. We didn’t like that. If our site blows up. We don’t want to think through how to restore. We want to just do it. That’s why we’ve added Simple Restore.

Simple Restore allows you to go from a fresh WordPress install to your backup version in minutes. Here’s a video that shows you how it works:

As you see ion the video, it takes a few clicks and you’re done. We’re really happy with how it turned out and hope you’ll enjoy it as well.

2. Better Database Connectivity

With v1 of AWB, we had a number of people tell us that the plugin wasn’t working for them and the primary source of the problems was the database connectivity. That is no longer the case. We’ve completely revamped the code for connecting with the database, borrowing code from the WP DB Manager plugin, which was partially borrowed from the phpMyAdmin system. We haven’t had any issues with beta testers around database connectivity so we think we’ve got this one handled.

3. Plugin Requirements Panel

WordPress is such a popular content management system that it is used in all kinds of web servers. Due to the complexity of the problem we’re trying to solve and the various types of server systems on the web, we cannot make our plugin work on all servers.

To make it easier to debug what might be going wrong, we’ve added a Plugin Requirements panel. This panel lists out the requirements for getting AWB working and it will tell you which of the requirements are not being met. This will arm you with the information you need to work with your host to get AWB working on your server.

So there you have it. Simple Restore. Better Database Connectivity. A Plugin Requirements panel. That my friends is Automatic WordPress Backup v2.0. Tell us whist you think in the comments below and PLEASE either write a review of the plugin or turn on the credit line in the footer. As i mentioned earlier, our mission for this plugin is simple: Simple, automatic backup for all WordPress websites. We need your support to be able to continuously invest time and money into the development and support of this plugin. Thank you for your support and feedback.

What’s Next?

The next task on our to-do list is File-by-File uploading that only uploads files that have been changed. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Due to some problems with the WordPress.org plugin repo, we needed to release AWB 2 with the current feature set. The feature mentioned below will be going into beta soon.

We were going to be releasing AWB 2.0 soon (like a week ago) but now we’re reworking a gigantic part of the plugin so that it doesn’t backup the entire site as one big zip, but instead uploads each individual file and only uploads files that have been changed since the last update. This will have 3 main benefits:

• Cuts down on wasted bandwidth
• Cuts down on wasted storage on s3 (even though it’s dirty cheap)
• Allows gigantic sites to be backed up without a ton of memory issues.

We’re going to be dropping at least one more beta pretty soon and then release the final version of v2. It’s going to be fantastic!

We’re going to be doing some hands on debugging on your websites for the people who are having problems. Here’s the key part: You have to volunteer to setup a temporary site and provide us access to the site so we can dig in and identify what isn’t working and how we can fix it. Once you’ve done that, fill out the form below and we’ll be debugging later this week.

PS: We’re not going to have time to do debugging for everyone (because he is a very skilled programmer, he’s not cheap and I’m just a small business) so it’ll be done on a first come, first serve basis. Hope we get yours working soon.

UPDATE 2: Automatic WordPress Backup 2 is now available.

UPDATE 1: Beta now available for download at http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/automatic-wordpress-backup.zip. Please leave comments, questions & feedback below.

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Alright, we’ve got the next version of the Automatic WordPress Backup plugin ready for testing. There are 2 big update areas in this release.

Updated Database Export Method

One of the core issues a lot of people were having was getting the plugin to work on their dedicated or virtual private servers. The new approach should be able to handle database exports (aka “mysql dumps”) much better. This means the plugin should work with a lot more hosting providers.

Restore

Backing up a WordPress website is only half of equation. What happens when disaster does strike? You restore. The restore feature built into the new version of AWB makes it a 3-click process to bring back an old version of your website. There really isn’t much more to say about this feature because it’s just dead simple. You have to just try it for yourself.

Beta Testers Needed

We’ve gotten this plugin working smoothly on our hosting platform (Rackspace Cloud Sites) but we have no idea how it will perform on the multitude of hosting providers in the world. That is where we need help. We need those of you who would like to be adventurous enough to try the new version to try out the plugin and  report back any problems you might have.

If you’re interested, please leave a comment below and I’ll get in touch with you via email in the next couple days.

We were recently asked by Matt Mullenweg over at WordPress / Automattic to not use the domain that contained their trademark “WordPress” in it or he would need to remove us from the WordPress directory.

Following a few email exchanges with Matt, I decided it was in the best interest of the plugin to move the official website into a directory of our main website. Though I am disappointed that we won’t get to utilize the awesome domain name of WordPressBackup.org, I understand Matt & Automattic’s point of view on the matter. They are building a business and need to protect their assets.

In any case, we’ve moved the website over to http://www.webdesigncompany.net/automatic-wordpress-backup. We’ll still be providing the same level of support as we have in the past and will likely be introducing a few new features to the website, such as a real support forum. In addition, we’ve got some exciting new features coming up soon for the plugin.

2010 will be a fantastic year for both AWB and for WordPress. I wish everyone continued success and hope to connect with you at some point.

We pushed out a few updates couple updates to Automatic WordPress Backup last night and I wanted to share with you what’s changed:

• Updated General options page. (We really do need your support in order to financially justify the continued development of this plugin.)
• Fixed a few bugs.
• Altered the SQL dumps to include “drop table” calls so that it could be used by the restore functionality we’re currently working on.

For your backup to be compatible with the Restore functionality we’re building, it will need to be created with v 1.0.2 or higher so please upgrade as soon as possible.

PS: Future updates will get added to a changelog as well as a blog post.

Today we’ve released the world’s best backup system available for WordPress websites and it’s ready to download & use without cost.

Why Backup WordPress?

It’s the smart & safe thing to do. There are a number of different reasons why you could lose all your WordPress data:

• Internet worm/virus attacks your website.
• Server crashes.
• Faulty plugin wipes out entire database or all files.
• You accidentally delete all your files or maybe just one really important one.
• You’re upgrading to newer version of WordPress and something goes wrong.

With all these dangers hanging just around the corner, why risk having all your hard work & time go to waste? Why not do the smart thing and setup an automatic backup system for your WordPress website?

What is Automatic WordPress Backup?

Automatic WordPress Backup is WordPress plugin that saves a copy of your entire WordPress database, all the files you’ve uploaded, the plugins you’ve installed, the themes you’ve added and your settings files (config.php & .htaccess) to the Amazon S3 servers. Amazon S3 is a enterprise-level storage system that allows people to store files at ultra cheap prices (around $0.15/GB.)

The beauty of Automatic WordPress Backup is that it is a “set-and-forget” system that will automatically save a backup either daily, weekly or monthly depending on  which you choose.

How can you support AWB?

Friends don’t let friends allow their WordPress website to go on without a backup. The biggest thing you can do to support us is write about the plugin on your blog and provide us feedback on how we can improve the plugin.