Backup / Restore

Backups are an integral part of any system. It must be an integral part of an organization disaster plan and procedures.

What is a Backup

Backup refers to the copying of physical or virtual files or databases to a secondary location for preservation in case of equipment failure or catastrophe. The process of backing up data is pivotal to a successful disaster recovery plan.

A properly configured backup process is design to minimize the impact due to data corruption, hardware failure, malicious hacking, user error or other unforeseen events. Backups capture and synchronize at a point-in-time the state of the files being backup that then can be used to return data to its previous state.

Backup and recovery testing is a Mandatory step that must be done on a regular basis to insure that your backup procedures are actually working. This practice also allows an organization's to examine their practices and technologies for data security and data replication. The goal is to ensure rapid and reliable data retrieval should the need arise. The process of retrieving backed-up data files is known as file restoration.

Best Practices

1) The most important backup best practices is to frequently do a restoring test with all of the options you are going to use in a real-life scenario, on a test device/server/PC. This will minimize the chances that you are caught off guard in the event of an unfortunate situation.

2) Use remote storage/offsite backups to minimize data loss in case of a disaster

3) Define a proper retention period for your backups.

4) If appropriate consider encrypting your data backups for security reasons

Definitions:

•Backup: the action of making a duplicate copy of a file or folder.

•Restoration: the action of restoring a Backup file/folder.

•Production: the files/folders used for storing and processing all active data used in the daily activities of the organization (located in the Local drive C on Unipco server)

•Backup content: refers to the files/folders located in the Production environment that is copied to a second storage device for security reasons or as defined in a disaster plan

•Data Archiving: Data archiving is the practice of identifying data and moving a copy of it out of Production and into a long-term storage systems. Archival data is stored so that at any time it can be brought back into service. (located in the Local drive E:\Backup folder on Unipco Server)

•Off Site: this backup type is the replication of the Production data to a device which is separated geographically (stored) from a production systems site (Unipco server).

•Versioning: is the retention of unique copies of the same file made at a specific point in time to capture any changes made to the file. This feature allows the restoration of a file based on a previous point in time. Versioning only occurs if the file has changed or has been deleted. The number of version (copies) retained can be set in the Backup process. The number of days a deleted file can be retained before it is permanently deleted in the Data Archive is also set in the Backup process.

•Delta: This is a cumulative incremental backups, it only copies the data that has been changed since the previous backup cycle. Since only the change portion of the file is copied after the initial backup of the file this process is a compact and efficient way to perform backups on large or fast changing files.

Backup Process

The Backup content is:

▪IIS Backup (key files for the web sites used for remote users)

▪Inetpub (the log access files for the web sites)

▪MSSqlBackup (backup copies of the existing Velocity database)

▪Sage (version 2021 of the install file for Sage)

▪Unipco (All programs, help files, database and other related files)

▪Default Admin Users folders for the following items

•2BrightSparks folders (key setting files for your backup program)

•Roaming settings RHOP

•Work Document Folder ( C:\ Work Documents - contains all corporate files/documents and private folders including the Sage C:\Work Documents\Corporate Documents\Winsim 2020 folder - data file)

The File Service content is:

•File Service Folder (all folders including user documents/files saved in the Unipco File Service option)

1) Off Site backups. Requires 3 separate devices. Every day a Backup of the Backup Content and of the File Service content will be made at 12 am and copied at that time to the portable backup device plug into the Unipco server.

Possible Risk:

•Failure to plug-in the portable device at the appropriate time

•Failure to plug-in the correct device assigned for the selected date

•Failure or corruption of the backup device

•Maxing out the capacity of the backup device (devices should not be used past their 80% total space capacity)

2) Data Archiving. This will Backup the Backup Content with the exception of the RHOP database. The Versioning option is set at a maximum of 3 versions(copies) kept for up to 30 days, with deleted files retained for a maximum of 14 days after their deletion. This backup will run every 2 hours.

Possible Risk:

•Failure or corruption of the archive drive

•Maxing out the capacity of the archive drive (Drive should not be used past its 80% total space capacity)

3) RHOP Versioning-Delta Backup. This option will be used to backup exclusively the RHOP database. The Delta option will be used to optimize the space required to save the various versions of the database. The Versioning setting is set to a rotating 12 version. This backup will be set to run every 2 hours every day. The Data is stored in the folder E:\ RHOP Versioning-Delta Backup

IMPORTANT: The Delta option requires at a minimum a change in the database larger than 10 MB to trigger the delta option. If no change or a change smaller than 10 MB exist, no Delta or Versioning of the database will occur. Therefore, as an example; if changes to the database only occurs during an 11 hour period per day, the delta and versioning should cover a rotating 48 hour period. The restoration process can restore the database to any point in time covered by the 12 rotating versions created.

Possible Risk:

•Failure or corruption of the archive drive

•Maxing out the capacity of the archive drive (Drive should not be used past its 80% total space capacity)

4) Unipco File Service Backup. This option backup all documents/files stored in the File Service folders. The Backup is run every day at 8pm and contains the last three (3) versions of a file/document. These versions are kept for a maximum of 60 days before being deleted. Documents deleted will be retained for a maximum of 30 days before being permanently deleted.

Possible Risk:

•Failure or corruption of the archive drive

•Maxing out the capacity of the archive drive (Drive should not be used past its 80% total space capacity)