Backup Policy
Objective
We aim to highlight to the user how and when the back up is run and what is actually backed up. This Policy provides good advice on how staff can ensure their work data is stored safely.
Definitions
- To back up data is to copy them to another medium so that, if the active data are lost, they can be recovered in a recent if not completely current version. Backup is primarily intended for disaster recovery, and the assumption is that in most cases the backed-up data will not be read.
- To archive data is to move them to another medium for long term storage. Archive is intended for the storage of data that do not need to be kept immediately accessible, but which may possibly be needed at some point in the future.
- The distinction between backup and archive is not absolutely clear: if data are backed up, and then subsequently the original, more accessible copies are deleted, the backed-up
- copies effectively become an archive.
Back Up Process
Backups of the file systems are run on a daily basis, usually starting around 6pm and finishing around 7.30am. Certain systems/disks may be backed up earlier and/or take longer to finish.
Each daily backup saves the contents of files and directories on the servers at the time the backup was performed. Therefore the backups do not record all activities or contents of users' files throughout the day or week. A backup is simply a snapshot in time of the data present on the system at the time the backup ran. Therefore it is completely possible for a user to create and delete a file during the course of a day which will never appear on a backup. This is also true of email messages; a user may receive, read and delete an email message without the daily backup of the email storage ever recording that message (although there would normally be a record of who sent and received an email message -- without the contents -- in the system mail server logs).
Backups are run overnight from Monday to Friday and a back up of slow moving data is started on Saturday and runs to Sunday night. One full backup per month is kept offsite (monthly backup), till the next is produced. The daily backups are kept offsite and then in a fireproof safe.
The backup system does not save files stored on local C, D drives nor does it save personal folders in outlook. These are the users’ responsibility
Reasons for backup and archive
The primary reason for backing up data is to keep copies in case of disaster, for example catastrophic software failure that destroys data, hardware failure of a computer making data inaccessible, or environmental damage to computers such as fire.
The best way for staff to ensure their work is regularly back-up automatically by the ICT service is to save all working documents on the relevant part of the staff intranet (Sharepoint and specific shared drives for images and geographical information).
Backups of the data on central servers are created in case of a disaster affecting the servers or databases held on them. They are not intended for recovering individual files or emails belonging to particular users. The backups are structured in the most efficient way for recovering complete systems or databases. This makes them unsuitable and cumbersome for recovering individual items. Individual users need to make their own backups to protect their own data from loss.
Archive, as explained above, is the storage on slower and less accessible media of data that do not need to be immediately accessible. The Authority does not provide a central service for the archiving of miscellaneous electronic data.
Data may be archived (via the backup mechanism) to subsequently help, not in recovery but in monitoring, as part of the management of the service. Typically this will be logging data.
It may become a legal obligation for the National Park Authority to maintain archives of content or logging data for a certain minimum period of time, in case of subsequent demand by authorised government agencies.
(Business Continuity – This is different to tape backups and is run independently of the tape backups and is not covered here.)
