Using a development server also as a backup production server

["Kar-Hai Chu" <karhai@gmail.com>]

I have 2 identical machines running a few medium size websites. One is
a production machine, the other is an identically (or 99% so) setup
machine used for development. Currently, when features on the
development server are adequately tested, they are pushed into
production.

Due to a tight budget, we do not have a live redundant backup to our
production server (other than its RAID 1). One thing we *do* have is
hard drive space - so we've been trying to setup a process where live
production data (mysql, apache) is backup up nightly onto the
development machine, so if the production server goes down, we can
"flip" the development server into production mode (move development
data aside, and symlink to all the backed up production data).

This seems to be an extremely dirty method, requiring manually
changing a lot of config files, questions about whether the
development server can actually acquire the production IP, and many
other quirks. I have not completed this process, but there must be a
more efficient (standard?) way. I've only been involved with Debian
for a little over a year, but have done enough Linux to pick things up
quickly.. and after some browsing, haven't run into many cases of
fast-converting a development machine into production mode.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!