A surveyor loses a year of work
A small surveying firm keeps all its plans on one office computer. A burst pipe floods the room.
The firm did make a copy once. It was on the same shelf, and it was two years old.
A copy is not enough. It must be the right copy, in the right place.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can write a backup plan that answers the six criteria.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Backup | a spare copy of data kept for later recovery |
| Restore | to copy backed-up data back into use |
| Frequency | how often a backup is made |
| Destination | the place the copy is sent to |
| Retention | how long a copy is kept |
| Onsite | kept in the same building as the original |
| Secondary site | a second building that holds a copy |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter
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Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
A backup keeps data ready to recover
The purpose of a backup is simple. Keep an up-to-date copy so you can restore the data later.
You may need all of it, after a disaster. Or you may need a part, after one file is deleted by mistake.
A good backup plan answers six questions. They are the six criteria.
The six criteria
| Criterion | The question | Example answer |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency | How often do we copy? | Every night |
| Source | What do we copy? | The shared plans folder |
| Destination | Where does the copy go? | An external location |
| Storage | What format and place hold it safely? | Disk in a locked cabinet at a second site |
| Retention | How long do we keep it? | Ninety days |
| Test | How do we know it restores? | A trial restore each month |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Check
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Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.