Secure Your Sitecore Data: The Pre-Migration Backup Guide

Before migrating from Sitecore to WordPress, having a complete and verified backup is crucial. This backup guide outlines the key steps and considerations for securely backing up your Sitecore setup.

What to Back Up

A full Sitecore backup includes more than just your content. It also includes other components. Typically, this includes:

• Content: All published pages, blog posts, articles, and product descriptions.
• Media Files: The entire library of images, videos, PDFs, and audio files.
• User Profiles: All user accounts, roles, and their associated permissions.
• SEO Metadata: Page titles, meta descriptions, keywords, and image alt tags.
• Analytics Data: User engagement and analytics information.
• Configurations: Settings related to any third-party integrations.

The Challenge with Sitecore Backups

Backing up a Sitecore instance is no straightforward job. And that’s because different Sitecore solutions approach backups differently. 

Let’s zoom in how backups can work with Sitecore XM Cloud—Sitecore’s latest headless CMS solution—to understand this.

With a typical Sitecore XM Cloud, you can’t take a complete backup on your end. 

Why? 

Because Sitecore XM Cloud is a managed service with Sitecore handling the entire instance.

For a Sitecore XM Cloud instance:

• User data: For backing up customer profiles or user data through database or file system backups, you’ll need to contact the Sitecore support team for help.
• Content assets: To back up content assets, you can use various methods under Sitecore content serialization (an umbrella term for Sitecore export tools and solutions).
• Media items: For backing up media items, you’d typically use a Sitecore PowerShell script.

And so on.

Sitecore Backup Methods at a Glance

Depending on your existing Sitecore setup, see how you can back up your different Sitecore elements from content and user data to media files.

Here’s a table to guide you with backing up your Sitecore setup:

Data Type	Typical items	Backup method
Content items	Pages, blog posts, articles, product descriptions, etc.	Sitecore Serialization: A collection of export tools for your content. Team support may be needed depending on the method.
Media assets	Images, videos, PDFs, and audio files.	Media Library Export or a custom PowerShell script. Can often be done independently.
SEO metadata	Page titles, meta descriptions, keywords, and alt tags.	Sitecore PowerShell script: The most common method to export this data efficiently.
User data	User profiles, roles, and permissions.	API transfer: This requires assistance from the Sitecore support team or a developer.
Any other content/data	–	–

Final Best Practice

After you take a backup, test it thoroughly. Once you’ve confirmed the backup is complete and functional, upload it to a secure storage for safekeeping. This ensures you have a reliable restore point in case of any issues during the migration process.

At rtCamp, we handle everything from the initial backup to the final quality assurance testing. Please get in touch with us to ensure a seamless migration of your Sitecore website.