A common usage of CI/CD tools today is to build and deploy a static website to a CDN. This has many advantages over the old way (like running Wordpress), such as security, cost, and flexibility. Developers love the ability to use any crazy JavaScript library they want on the client side, Sysadmins love not having another PHP server to feed and water, and accountants love the bill! However, one common issue has been the common practice of hard-coding AWS API keys into CI servers, or worse, committing them into a repository.

A key part of operating any safe and reliable system is ensuring that there is a way to recover deleted or lost data in a prompt and consistent way. One key part of that is to maintain automatic backups that are recoverable and verifiable. This is a quick and easy way to accomplish that goal, by using existing pieces of infrastructure that are common in production networks. There are countless ways to perform a backup, this is simply one of the “easiest” given these ingredients are available.