How to Know What Backup Framework Your School Needs?
Most organizations use the hub and spoke method of data storage, in which satellites (classrooms, schools and facilities) transfer backup data to a central administrative site. Schools are no different. Off-premises devices may or may not require backing up. A mixture of on-premises and off-premises or cloud storage is typical.
Administrative data backup requirements may dictate the framework used for both administrative and classroom backups. Third-party computing providers, often web and email hosts, may offer their own backup and restoration services. A best practice is to know and log how your school’s third-party providers and their contractors store their data. You’ll need to know whether they use encryption, how often backups are done and the data handling practices of their contractors.
General guidelines will vary, but compliance with data handling policies is the top priority.
READ MORE: Learn how schools are modernizing their data centers with HCI.
How to Effectively Manage Backup Data Sets
Backup data sets may be used for restoration and/or for archiving. However, once data sets are retired, best practices dictate more than a simple file deletion. In some jurisdictions, the area once occupied by a pertinent deleted data set must be overwritten numerous times once the media has been marked for recycling or disposal.
Each target storage facility must comply with data destruction procedures where applicable. These can include network attached storage devices, storage servers at primary data centers or externally-hosted storage arrays.
Consider graduating data set elements that require backup and possible restoration or archiving. The lowest level is the device, such as a PC, Chromebook-like laptop, tablet or off-premises devices. Devices may contain personally identifiable information, which could be subject to compliance restrictions. A best practice is to have a working encryption system transparent to users for theft protection in the event of a device breach.
Each operating system type has its own file, folder and directory storage metadata. This must be backed up to a storage device, which can support restoring the data set with the metadata intact.
Backup software applications must be checked to confirm that backed-up data is encrypted in storage and that the file metadata can be restored correctly when needed. Once deployed, encryption can be administratively managed across an entire organization.
