Files to back up during your development process

You already know you should back up your desktops and servers regularly. Most developers do know this, but knowing and consistently following through are two different things. This article is a friendly reminder to verify your backups and, more specifically, to identify the files that are most important to back up while you build licensing into your software with our products.

Why this matters

Backups only help if they actually run and complete. We have seen real-world cases where a business assumed it was protected (mirrored drives, an attached backup drive, an "off-site" service) only to discover, after a hardware failure, that no successful backup had completed in months. A RAID 1 mirror can quietly run in a degraded state on a single drive, a scheduled backup can silently fail, and a power surge can take out hardware that everyone assumed was safe. The lesson is simple: do not just set up a backup, confirm on a regular basis that it is succeeding.

For software developers, the stakes are higher than usual, because some of the files involved in licensing your application cannot be regenerated by anyone, including us. If you lose certain encryption data, you lose the ability to issue licenses that work with software you have already deployed to customers.

Files to back up during development

In addition to your normal backups of source code and your whole machine, make sure the following items are included.

Your source code and version control history

Back up your complete source code along with its version control history. Keep copies that represent each meaningful stage of your licensing work:

1. A copy taken before you added any licensing to your application.
2. The changes made while you were integrating licensing.
3. The final, working state after licensing was applied.

Having these snapshots makes it far easier to compare behavior, roll back a problem, or rebuild if something is lost.

Protection PLUS 5 SDK: your License Manager envelope (encryption keys)

If you use Protection PLUS 5 SDK, the single most critical item to back up is your License Manager envelope. The envelope holds the private key data for your server key, which is what allows you to create signed, read-only license files for your product.

We do not keep our customers' encryption envelopes on file. We can generate a new envelope if necessary, but a new envelope will not match applications you have already deployed using your original envelope. In practical terms, losing your envelope without a backup means you can no longer produce licenses that validate against software already in your customers' hands.

Make a secure backup of your envelope data and store it somewhere safe and reliable, ideally off-site or otherwise separated from your working machine. You configure and manage the envelope from the License Manager (Tools / Options). For more detail, see Using the License Manager.

Also back up:

• The Protection PLUS 5 SDK installer that you downloaded, so you can reinstall the exact version you built against.
• Any clean original image files you use if you store licenses inside images (steganography), since you need an unmodified copy of the image. See License Files for how license files can be stored.

Instant Protection PLUS 3 (IPP3): project files

If you use IPP3, be sure to back up:

• Your IPP3 project files (files with the .ipp extension) for every project you create. The IPP3 project file holds your product configuration and the encryption/key data IPP3 needs to generate valid licenses, so it is the critical item to preserve.

(Note: LFEdit, product.pd product definitions, and the License Manager are Protection PLUS 4 / Protection PLUS 5 SDK tools and do not apply to IPP3.)

SOLO Server users

If you manage licensing through SOLO Server, your license and order data lives on the server side. If you run a self-managed (on-premise) SOLO Server, ensure its database is part of a regularly verified backup routine. If you use our hosted SOLO Server, your data is backed up as part of the service, but you should still back up everything on your own development machines as described above.

Verify your backups regularly

1. Confirm that your scheduled backups are actually completing, not just scheduled. Check the logs or status reports rather than assuming success.
2. Watch for the daily success or failure notifications from any backup service you use, and investigate failures immediately.
3. Keep at least one copy off-site or in the cloud, so a single fire, theft, or power event cannot wipe out both your working data and your backup.
4. If your files contain sensitive information, choose a backup method that encrypts the data at rest and in transit.

Bottom line

Take a few minutes to make sure your important data is covered by a backup plan and that the plan is running successfully. Portable drives are inexpensive and reliable cloud backup options are widely available, so there is no good reason to leave your source code, encryption keys, and project files unprotected. For licensing specifically, treat your encryption envelope or key data as irreplaceable and back it up first.