BACKUP SOLUTIONS FOR SCHOOLS. Advice and Guidance. ICT Services 42 New Union Street Coventry CV1 2HN

Transcription

1 BACKUP SOLUTIONS FOR SCHOOLS Advice and Guidance ICT Services 42 New Union Street Coventry CV1 2HN

2 Revision History and Approval Date Author Version Comments Approval 26/02/2014 Alison York 1.00 Initial Draft for Review 9/02/2015 Julian Small 2.00 Redesign for Review Reviewers Name Role Business Area Alison York ICT Application Management Officer Resources - ICT Julian Small ICT Infrastructure Operations Officer Resources - ICT Dee Joyce User Support Lead Resources - ICT Copyright 2015 Coventry City Council. All Rights Reserved 1

3 Table of Contents Revision History and Approval... 1 Reviewers... 1 Recommendations... 3 Redstor Cloud Backup Solution... 4 Introduction... 4 Bundle Sizes available... 4 Redstor Client Software... 5 Backup Selections... 5 Files and folders... 5 System State... 5 SIMS Data... 5 Report Notifications... 5 Device Name... 6 Used Storage... 6 Last Successful Backup... 6 Status... 6 Selected size... 6 Number of files... 6 Files Processed... 6 Size of processed files... 7 Sent Size... 7 No. of errors... 7 Last 28 Days Status... 7 Backup Assist Software onto RD1000 Removable Media Cartridges Introduction... 8 Media... 8 Schedule... 9 Notifications... 9 Example Report Yosemite Software onto RD1000 Removable Media Cartridges

4 ICT Services Advice for Backup Systems in Schools It is essential that the school has a regular good backup. In the event of theft, fire, virus, system failure or corruption your data can be restored. Recommendations ICT Services currently recommend Redstor Backup for Schools. It is a fully automated, online backup and data recovery service which simplifies the management of backups for schools. The service is also Capita's approved service for protecting SIMS data. The Redstor Backup for Schools automatically protects data residing on servers and according to retention policies and schedules set by the user. Data is compressed, encrypted and sent to one of the secure state of the art UK data centres before it is replicated to a second secure Redstor data centre assuring the data is safely offsite for disaster recovery. When data recovery is required, users can simply select the data to restore using an intuitive interface. Redstor Backup for Schools currently protects data for over 60 schools within Coventry. Benefits of Redstor Backup for Schools Include: No capital outlay for storage and backup equipment No maintenance costs Data is encrypted and is stored off site in Redstor high security data centres No tapes and tape management issues Maximum data availability and data security No need to acquire and maintain specific storage technical knowledge or management Consistent regular data backups with minimum human intervention Safeguards the confidentiality of school data through strong encryption Flexible data retentions to comply with internal policy regulations Rapid data recovery online or with an optional data recovery appliance Reduces the time that school admin staff will have to spend on checking backups Takes away the onus on schools to store tapes/data cartridges, therefore eliminating any financial risk that could be had if tapes/data cartridges were lost/stolen 3

5 Although Backup Assist was previously the recommended backup solution, this has now been superseded by Redstor which is a proven solution for over 2,000 schools across the country. N.B. More than one person needs to be aware and responsible for the process of checking that a backup has been successful. If you are using a legacy backup system such as Yosemite or NT Backup these are no longer recommended as a viable and reliable method of protecting your admin network, your Sims, financial and user data. ICT Services suggest you contact the Service Desk who will raise a ticket for you and assign to the Infrastructure Operations Team to contact you to discuss recommended backup solutions. Phone number: (open Monday to Friday 8am - 5pm) ServiceDesk@Coventry.gov.uk When ing the Service Desk, a ticket will automatically be raised on our system. Please note any IR reference numbers included in a reply to you. Should you wish to call the Service Desk, quoting this reference number will ensure we can direct your calls to the person/team identified to deal with your request. Please refer to the relevant section below for your backup guidance. Redstor Cloud Backup Solution Introduction Redstor is a cloud backup solution that negates the use of tapes and associated storage of them at school sites. All Backups are Encrypted and stored at two datacentres in Slough and Reading. Coventry City Council ICT Service have access to a console which shows the status of backups at all schools using Redstor over 60 days, in addition to this daily reports can be sent by to multiple accounts at each school. The cost of the Redstor Backup solution is a yearly fee, determined by the amount of storage used by that account, at the Redstor Datacentre. Bundle Sizes available 50 GB 500GB 3 TB 7 TB 100 GB 1TB 3.5 TB 8 TB 200 GB 1.5TB 4 TB 9 TB 300 GB 2 TB 5TB 10 TB 400 GB 2.5TB 6TB 4

6 Redstor Client Software The Redstor client agent is installed on the server to be backed up. The Desktop Icon on the server is as below: Schedule The backup Schedule is generally set to run Mon-Fri at When the Redstor Client is first installed on your server, the first backup it performs is a full backup. Every scheduled backup after this is incremental. Backup Selections The Backup Client will perform three types of backup daily (weekdays). Files and folders This backup includes all the files and folders in the user s areas, the live drive, and the pool drive. System State This backup contains a number of items specific to the server setup and would be used in the event of full server disaster recovery. SIMS Data This backup specifically backups up the Sims database, the finance database, the Sims folder and the document server storage folder. Report Notifications The reports are configured to be sent out on a daily basis (approx. 7am). These reports can be sent to multiple addresses. It is recommended that more than one person on site receives these s, to cover for sickness, absence or annual leave. The Daily report should be read and checked every day. It is imperative that the school check these logs on a daily basis. If there are any errors or the backup is failing, it is the schools responsibility to notify the ICT service desk. If this is not done then in the event of data loss or restore requests, you may not have a valid backup from which to restore. This will lead to data needing to be re-input / work needing to be redone. It is also recommended that each daily report is kept in a Daily Backups folder and retained for minimum three months. 5

7 A successful Backup report should look like this: Device Name This is usually in the format Servername.schoolname Used Storage This figure shows the amount of storage used by the client software backup on the Redstor Datacentre. If this figure exceeds the bundle size purchased by the school, the account will be moved into the next bundle size price bracket. The schools initial bundle size will be listed on the written quote and the invoice provided by CCC ICT. Last Successful Backup This indicates the last time and date your backup completed and must be checked daily. If this does not show the previous nights date (or the last Friday night date when checking on Monday morning) Please raise an incident on the CCC ICT Service desk. Status This should show completed. If this says anything else (see the Backup indicator explanation in the screenshot above), Please raise an incident on the CCC ICT Service desk. Selected size This indicates the size of the Data on the server selected for backup. Number of files This indicates the number of files on the server selected for backup. Files Processed This indicates the number of files on the server that have changed since the last backup, hence requiring a backup. 6

8 Size of processed files This indicates the size of the processed files on the server to be backed up. Sent Size This indicates the backup data (after compression) to be sent to the Redstor datacentre in an encrypted format. No. of errors Will list the number of files with errors (if any) Last 28 Days Status This displays a colour chart of the backups for the last 28 days. N.B. Regular Grey areas indicate the weekends, when no backup runs. N.B. The daily report received on a Monday morning may have a red border around it, even though the backup has completed successfully on the Friday night. This is to draw your attention to the fact that there has not been a backup for 48 hours. This is expected as the backup has not been scheduled to run on Saturday or Sunday night. 7

9 Backup Assist Software onto RD1000 Removable Media Cartridges. Backup Assist is a paid for piece of software previously recommended as an acceptable Backup Solution for schools. It provides encrypted backup onto removable media and offers both log file and notifications of backup reports. It does not provide a safe and secure method of off-site backup and does require daily attention. Schools using this method may wish to consider moving to Redstor at some point in the next financial year. Introduction Backup Assist is a software application previously purchased when an admin server was replaced and is design to work with the Internal RD1000 Drive on your Admin server. Media The media used by this is a set of ten Removable Disk Cartridges These are effectively a hard disk in a plastic Caddy. The Media itself (Not the box) should be labelled in pencil as follows: Monday Friday 2 Tuesday Friday 3 Wednesday Friday 4 Thursday Friday 1 Monthly Quarterly N.B. The backups on this media are encrypted. The media should be kept in a safe place, away from dust, damp, heat and sunlight. At least one recent backup should be kept securely in a different building. As these are not tapes, they do not need replacing. They can however become faulty e.g. if they are dropped. This will cause an error in the backup log, and may also show on the RD1000 drive in the server when a faulty cartridge is inserted the light will remain yellow/orange. This light is normally green on the drive when media is loaded. 8

10 Schedule The Backup is scheduled to run daily in the evening, using the following calendar schedule: Notifications Backup completion reports are ed to as many nominated members of staff as you require. It is important that these s are checked and that the backup is confirmed as successful These s should be checked on a daily basis for any errors. An example of a successful report is shown in Fig 1. It is imperative that the school check these logs on a daily basis. If there are any errors or the backup is failing, it is the schools responsibility to notify the ICT Service Desk. If this is not done then in the event of data loss or restore requests, you may not have a valid backup from which to restore. This will lead to data needing to be reinput / work needing to be redone. 9

11 Fig. 1 - Example Report " Full Backup" Report Backup to: RDX drive Date: 08 January :11:44 " Full Backup" Successful Errors / Warnings Summary No errors or warnings to report. Backup Job Summary Item BackupAssist Version Computer Name Backup User Snapshot Manager Backup Destination Details / Results 6.4.0r1 XXXXX XXXXXX\backupuser Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) RDX drive Backup Label Tuesday Start Time 07 January :45:36 End Time 08 January :11:44 Duration 1 hours, 26 minutes, 8 seconds 10

12 Backup Size Files Backed Up Directories Backed Up GB 137,949 23,999 Process Summary Process Status Destination Check Delete Old Backups Data Backup Successful Successful Successful Local files F: Successful C: Successful G: Successful Compression VSS Application Backup Media Usage Successful Successful Successful Destination Check Report The Destination Check task has status: Successful Media Available Result Media that were successfully tested: RDX cartridge Tuesday in drive X:\ X:\ zip 11

13 Unavailable Media that could not be accessed: (none) In the event of any errors in the backup log, please raise a call on the service desk. Details at the top of Page 4 Yosemite Software onto RD1000 Removable Media Cartridges. Yosemite was a free piece of software shipped with the newer RD1000 cartridge backup solution. There is no support or upgrades available for this software in the event of backup issues. The software is limited in its ability to notify users of successful backups. This backup method also requires daily attention. *********************************** IMPORTANT ********************************* We have noticed that there are occasions when the backup task in Yosemite will stop working. When this occurs, the backup believes it is still running. At this point no further no reports will be sent and no errors will be reported by the software, and no further backups will be run. If you are using this as a method of backup, it is urgently recommended this is replaced. ********************************************************************************** 12