Definition
What is disaster recovery for Sitefinity (legacy versions)?
Disaster recovery for Sitefinity (legacy versions) is the set of systems and decisions that keep a Sitefinity site serving visitors when its primary environment fails.
A traditional plan restores the site from a backup onto rebuilt infrastructure. That takes hours or days and loses everything since the last snapshot. A live replica approach keeps a second, current copy of the site running and isolated, so failover is a switch rather than a rebuild.
The two approaches answer different questions. A backup answers "can we get the data back?". A live replica answers "can visitors keep working while we deal with this?". For a Sitefinity site the business depends on, the second question is the one that costs money every minute it stays unanswered.
Why now
Why Sitefinity sites need disaster recovery now
Sitefinity (legacy versions) is stable software with a large ecosystem, and that ecosystem is where the risk lives. The site depends on hosting, dependencies and integrations that each change on their own schedule, and any of them can take it down.
The facts that matter for a Sitefinity site today:
- Progress supports only recent Sitefinity releases. Sites several versions behind receive no security fixes.
- Older Sitefinity versions run on .NET Framework and Web Forms or MVC on .NET Framework, while current Sitefinity uses a .NET Core renderer.
- Upgrading across many versions is a multi-step process with widget and custom module rework at each step.
Failure modes
Where Sitefinity sites actually fail
Disaster recovery planning tends to imagine fires and floods. Real Sitefinity outages are more mundane and more frequent. The failure modes that a plan for Sitefinity (legacy versions) has to cover:
- An unpatched vulnerability in an old Sitefinity version or a custom widget.
- A Windows Server or SQL Server change that breaks the site.
- Ransomware spreading through the domain to the site and its backups.
- A failed server with no reproducible build.
- The backup itself: stored on the same domain, encrypted alongside production, or restored with the intrusion still inside it.
The replica
Why a live replica beats restoring Sitefinity from backup
Four things change when the site has a live, isolated copy instead of a snapshot on a shelf.
Zero recovery time, because nothing is recovered
The replica is already running. When the primary fails, visitors are switched to the copy in seconds. There is no rebuild, no restore window and no scramble to find the person who knows how the site was configured.
Zero data loss, because the copy is current
The replica follows the primary continuously rather than nightly. Changes made on the replica during an outage are captured and reconciled back when the primary returns.
Ransomware cannot follow
The replica is isolated from the primary's Active Directory domain, network and credentials. An attacker who owns production has no path into the copy, and you never restore from a snapshot that might carry the infection with it.
The vendor's outage is not your outage
When a hosting provider, a cloud region or a dependency fails, the replica sits outside that blast radius. Visitors keep working while someone else fixes their problem.
How it works
How the Jestr replica works for a Sitefinity site
Jestr does not re-implement Sitefinity (legacy versions). It runs a copy of your actual site, kept current and kept apart.
Jestr builds a live copy of the site
Jestr replicates the Sitefinity site as it actually runs: the application, its data and its configuration, at the exact version and with the exact dependencies the primary uses. Nothing is re-implemented, so what visitors see on the replica is the site they know.
The copy stays current and stays isolated
The replica follows the primary continuously, at a known-good state, so an update that breaks production does not break the copy. It runs on Jestr's side of the outage with no shared credentials, network or identity, so a compromise of the primary stops at the primary.
When the primary fails, you switch
One action moves visitors to the replica. They open the same pages, sign in and keep working. Changes are captured on the replica. The switch works even when your own network is the thing that is down.
When the primary is back, you reconcile and switch back
Changes made on the replica are reconciled into the restored primary. You choose when to switch back. Nothing was lost and no backup was restored.
What the replica captures for Sitefinity (legacy versions)
- Pages, content items, media and templates, so the site is intact on the replica.
- Forms, user logins and personalization where the site uses them.
- The IIS site, runtime and SQL Server database, kept current and isolated from the primary.
- Separation from the primary's domain, network and credentials.
Side by side
Backup and restore vs a live Sitefinity replica
The same outage, handled two ways.
| Dimension | Traditional backup and restore | Live Jestr replica |
|---|---|---|
| Time until visitors are served again | Hours to days: provision, restore, reconfigure, test | Seconds: the replica is already running |
| Data lost | Everything since the last snapshot, often a full day | Nothing: the replica is current, and changes made during the outage are reconciled back |
| Ransomware | Backups often sit in the blast radius, and a restore can bring the infection back | The replica is isolated; you switch to it instead of restoring into the compromise |
| Vendor or hosting outage | You wait for the provider | The replica sits outside the provider's failure domain |
| Rehearsal | Rarely tested, because a full restore is disruptive and slow | Switching to the replica is routine and can be rehearsed any time |
| Who does the work at 3am | Your team, from a runbook that may be out of date | The switch is one action; the copy was built and kept current in advance |
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does Jestr replace our Sitefinity backups?
No. Keep backups for archives, audits and long-term retention. Jestr replaces the part of the plan that backups are bad at: keeping the site available while the primary is down, without a restore window and without data loss.
Can visitors sign in and work on the replica, or is it a static copy?
It is the real Sitefinity site, not a snapshot of its pages. Logins, forms and integrations work. Changes made during the outage are captured and reconciled when the primary returns.
How is ransomware kept out of the replica?
The replica shares nothing with the primary that an attacker could use: no credentials, no network path, no domain trust. Replication is one-way and validated, so an encrypted or tampered primary does not propagate. You switch to a clean copy instead of restoring into the compromise.
How fast is failover?
Seconds. The replica is already running and current, so failover is the act of pointing visitors at it. There is no provisioning, restoring or reconfiguring in the critical path.
Does this work with managed Sitefinity hosting?
Yes. The replica sits outside the hosting provider, whoever it is. That is the point: when the host has a bad day, the site does not.