Policy Manual

 
  6.MEP.14  

Computer Backup Procedure      

Type: Procedure                 Category: Information Technology                 Level: Community Care 

Parties: Community Care employees and contractees

Printer Friendly Version: http://apps.comcareme.org/policymanual/default.aspx?code=6.MEP.14&nonav=yes

Supporting References: 

Parent Effective Date Approval Level Revision Dates Last Reviewed
6.ME.15  1-6-2004  Management Team    N/A
Related Document Code Related Document Name Type
6.ME.3 Electronic Media Policy

Procedure:  .

Backup Schedule

 

Community Care servers will be backed up on a daily basis and will be appended to the current tape. In the case of sites with tape libraries, separate tapes may be used for each job. Incremental or differential backups will be performed on a daily basis for jobs not requiring a full daily backup. The backup schedule will be maintained in the organization's Microsoft Exchange Public Folders under All Public Folders\Agency Wide Public Folders\Information Systems\Information Systems Administrator Notes.

 

Daily backups will be performed Wednesday through Monday.

 

Weekly backups will be performed on the second through last Tuesdays and taken offsite on Wednesdays. Three weeks worth of weekly backups will be kept offsite at all times, with the needed weekly tapes coming onsite no sooner than Monday preceding its use.

 

Monthly backups will be performed on the first Tuesday of the month and will be kept offsite for a period of 1 year. Monthly tapes will be reused on an annual basis.

 

Special backups will be performed upon request. These are usually, but not limited to financial data.

All backup jobs, tapes and procedures are, primarily, the responsibility of the Network Administrator. If the Network Administrator is not available to load/change tapes or recycle offsite tapes, then an administrative designee will perform this function on an as-needed basis. The Network Administrator or Administrative Services Manager will notify the designee in the event they are needed.

Tape Libraries / Autoloaders

1.       All backup jobs should be set to overwrite the media, not append, if appropriate.

2.       Ensure proper tapes (including weekly and/or monthly tapes) are loaded on a daily basis. Magazine capacity permitting, have all daily and current weekly or monthly tape(s) loaded.

Offsite Storage

Tapes will be taken offsite by the Network Administrator or Administrative designee and stored in a safety deposit box at Peoples Heritage Bank, located at 1067 Union St, Bangor, Maine. The key to the safety deposit box is kept in a designated, locked filing cabinet in the Administration area. The Administrative Services Manager, Network Administrator and at least one other member of the Community Care administrative team will have access to the box.

Special backups will be so marked and stored for the time period specified by the requestor.

Tape Rotation

Tape rotation will be performed using the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) rotation algorithm. This scheme will perform backups every day, with cycled weekly and monthly backups to ensure an adequate period of protection

Network Administrator will ensure that the correct tape is in the drive for each backup. Tapes must be changed daily if a single drive is in use or have as many of the daily/weekly tapes loaded in magazines if an autoloader or tape library is being used.

Each Wednesday, the appropriate daily/weekly/monthly tapes should be sent offsite. Each Monday the upcoming daily/weekly/monthly tapes returned onsite.

Special backups shall not enter into the tape rotation cycle.

Tape Labels

Tapes will be labeled in a uniform manner, using the following format:

The tapes will be labeled for each day of the week, i.e. Daily01, Daily 02�.., etc. The Tuesday tapes will be labeled Weekly01, Weekly02��., etc. Monthly tapes will be labeled Month01, etc.

Tape Retention Periods

 

Daily tapes will have a 3 week retention period. This will prevent them from being overwritten by accident during the week. Weekly tapes will have a retention period of 3 weeks and monthly tapes will be retained for 11 months. This will ensure that each tape can be used once the cycle comes around again.

 

Data to be Backed Up

 

A list of all backed up files will be maintained in the organization's Microsoft Exchange Public Folders under All Public Folders\Agency Wide Public Folders\Information Systems\Information Systems Administrator Notes. It will be audited monthly by the Administrative Services Manager.

 

File Servers

 

All critical data files on all Community Care servers will be backed up daily using Open File Option. System States on Windows 2000 servers will be backed up weekly. Non-critical data files will be backed up weekly.

 

Acceptable exclusions include: system page files (or other virtual memory files), exchange database files (such files must be backed up in a different job, using Exchange Agent), other database files, such as SQL, Oracle, etc (such files must be backed up in a different job, using appropriate database agent). Additional files can be added to this list at the discretion of the Administrative Services Manager, Network Administrator and the Corporate IT director.

 

Mail and Database Servers

 

Exchange and other databases will be backed up using the appropriate Backup Exec Agent for online backups of the particular application.

 

Data Integrity Checks

 

File Servers

The Network Administrator will perform data integrity checks on a periodic basis. This will be accomplished by performing redirected restores of random data to an area on a local server. These restores will be performed on a quarterly basis, during the first month of the quarter. Source media for these restores can be any media used within the previous quarter and should include data from at least one monthly tape. Tapes may need to be brought back onsite for the purpose of this procedure.

Exchange Servers

Data integrity checks of Exchange data will happen once a year during the first quarter of the year. These checks can happen at the Administrative Services Manager discretion, based on work load. The check will consist of a complete restore of an Exchange server (contingent on available hardware).