System Backup Policy

Policy

System Backup Schedule

The College employs a disk-to-disk-to-tape backup system which currently operates as described below.  Because our volume of stored data increases daily, these schedules are subject to revision as needed.  Changes to the schedule described below will be incorporated into this document annually.

Currently the College operates approximately 56 instances of Windows Server, thirty of which are virtual running on six ESX host servers.  The data center holds a total of 29 server hardware platforms.

Backup software is currently CommVault from Hitachi Data Systems.

General Server Backup Schedule

Servers with data that seldom changes have a full backup performed monthly.  This includes most of our servers, especially those providing services but holding no user generated data such as the DNS server, the DHCP server, etc.

Units with more frequent changes to their stored information receive a weekly full backup.

Servers that experience the most frequent changes to user generated or transactional data are backed up daily, either a daily full backup or a daily incremental backup with a weekly synthetic full.  The Document Management server, SQL server, 4tx9.gxitma.net, and Filesvr are examples of servers in this category.

The backup schedule protocol includes backup to disk which is then transferred to tape.  Backup information written to disc is retained for a minimum of one week depending on SAN capacity.  With the current system software, tapes, drives and magazines, information written to tape begins to be overwritten after two weeks.

Email Server Backup Schedule

Email server operating systems and application programs (Microsoft Exchange) are recorded to disk and to tape on a monthly basis.

The email message store is backed up in its entirety every day, first to disk, then to tape as described above.  Daily email message store backups on the Exchange Server are overwritten after one day.  Archived email messages are retained for six years.

Purpose

None

To Whom Does This Policy Apply

None

References

None

Definitions

None

Procedure

None