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RE: untested backups



 some of us have audit requirements that demand that backup media be kept 
off-site.  you need to choose your transportation system as wisely as 
you choose the other elements in your infrastructure. 
of course, we don't usually get to choose, we just have to adjust to 
what we have. 

at my last place, my boss had a motto for backups: 

we do backups to do restores, quickly! 

our production database backups (+1TB) were restored to a dev 
environment at least once a quarter.  files were restored on demand, at 
least once per day (that's a user training problem).  so, we knew that 
not only were our backups good, the process for doing large restores was 
also good. 
all of our daily backups were full, no incrementals.  that's why the 
boss stressed quickly, no hunting through multiple tape logs.  of course 
our tape vendor loved us and so did the off-site storage vendor! 
plus, ya gotta love tape libraries and robots! 
  
-----Original Message----- 
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf 
Of Kristian Erik Hermansen 
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 5:47 PM 
To: Tom Metro 
Cc: L-blu 
Subject: Re: untested backups 

On Nov 12, 2007 1:46 PM, Tom Metro <[hidden email]> wrote: 
> Ummm...an untested backup is almost as bad as having no backups. 

Yup!  Insert wonderful example of backup to magnetic media on subway car 
:-) 
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/15.21.html#subj6

While studying for the CISSP All-In-One exam book by Shon Harris, she 
gives an example of a company who stored all their backups, but used the 
subway to transport them to the facility when it came time for 
restoration (so they were even tested!), but the subway trains created a 
magnetic filed that wiped the data on the way to the facility. 
Lesson learned?  Keep your data at the place of restoration and ensure 
it is tested :-) 
-- 
Kristian Erik Hermansen 

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