Data Backup and Recovery

Do we periodically backup individual and department data?

In today's technology environment almost everyone relies on a computer to store documents and scholarly papers, correspondence, financial reports, and many other invaluable resources. Imagine working for weeks or months on something and then it's all lost because a computer file is deleted or damaged. While hardware can be replaced and application software reloaded from original media, recovery of data files relies on regular backup procedures.

These questions can help you identify the adequacy of your current backup procedure:

• Are faculty and staff aware of their personal computer backup options? Do they have instructions for the options and recommended backup cycles?
• Do we regularly backup department servers? Does our server backup procedure include secure off-site storage?
• Do we periodically test restoration of personal and server files?
• Do users store all local data in a single directory to simplify backup of personal data and ensure all data is captured?
• Do we prohibit the use of e-mail folders for document storage?
• Do we periodically review our backup needs?

An answer of "no" to any of the above questions indicates a risk for which remedial steps should be considered.

It should be a top technology priority for every department to ensure that the data on faculty and staff machines is backed up on a regular basis to a secure place. There are many ways to do this. If the department owns a fileserver, such as a Novell NetWare, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Macintosh, Unix or Linux server, where all department personnel have accounts, users can save all their data to their server accounts. This approach assumes the department server is utilizing a proven backup and restore procedure. Alternatively, storage hardware such as a Zip drive can be purchased for each user’s computer, and each person is then responsible for performing her or his own backups. To help insure that users are diligent about saving their data, software can be purchased that allows backups to be run automatically, at any time of the day or night, as long as the computer is left on and the storage medium is ready.