Planning for Data Recovery

What are some unexpected events that would lead to needing data recovery?

1. A device that contains data was physically damaged. 2. An attacker performed malicious actions. 3. Malware deleted critical data.

What are the two modes of operation for Backup and Restore?

1. As a file based version where files are backed up to a zip archive. 2. The system image where the entire disk is saved block by block to a file.

When sending data off-site, your internet connection will be used to transmit the backup data. What are two reasons this could be a disadvantage?

1. Depending on how much data you're sending off site and how fast the internet connection is, this could take a lot of time. 2. Since backups will often contain sensitive and confidential business data, it's important the data is handled securely and stored in a way that prevents unauthorized access.

What are some of the key things to keep in mind when designing a data backup and recovery plan?

1. Figure out what data you need to backup. 2. Figure out how much total data you currently have. 3. Make sure to account for future growth.

What are some ways to perform regular backups?

1. Full backups 2. Differential backups 3. Regular Incremental backups

How do you provide security for off-site backup solutions?

1. Make sure that data is being transmitted securely, preferably encrypted via TLS. 2. The resulting backup data that's stored should also be encrypted at rest.

What are the disadvantages of using off-site backup solutions?

1. Needs security and encryption. 2. Needs large amounts of bandwidth.

How can you recover from an unexpected data loss event?

1. Recover data from damaged devices. 2. Restore data from backups.

What are three advantages of onsite backup solutions?

1. The data is physically very close which makes accessing the data a lot quicker. 2. You won't need as much outbound bandwidth since you aren't sending the data out of your internal network. 3. Restoring data from backups is quicker since the data is close at hand.

What can data recovery software do?

Analyze failed hard disks or flash drives and try to locate and extract data files.

What is Microsoft's first party backup solution called?

Backup and Restore

Differential backup

Backup mechanism in which you only backup files that are changed, or have been created since the last full backup.

Incremental backup

Backup mechanism that copies only the changed data since the last backup.

What is one thing you should consider when evaluating the backup strategy for an organization?

Backup time period.

What is the disadvantage to using incremental backups?

Because this approach only sorts differences in the files that have changed since the last incremental backup, it's possible that all incremental backups are needed to fully reconstruct the files.

What is the advantage of using off-site backup solutions?

Data is safer in multiple locations.

What is the standard medium for archival backup data storage?

Data tapes

What do system image backups support?

Differential mode, only backing up blocks on the disk that have changed since the last backup.

What is critical to ensuring a well functioning recovery system?

Disaster recovery testing

Restoration procedures

Documented solution for restoring data from a backup after a data loss incident.

What are some examples of cloud services designed for syncing and backing up files across platforms and devices?

Dropbox, Apple iCloud, and Google Drive

What are some examples of data necessary for operations?

E-mails, sales databases, financial spreadsheets, server configurations, and databases.

What do file based backups support?

Either complete backups or incremental ones.

What are the two ways data can be backed up?

Either locally to systems onsite, or data can be sent offsite to remote systems.

True or False: It is sufficient enough to just set up regular backups.

False; A recovery process is also needed and that process needs to be tested regularly.

True or False: RAID is a replacement for backups.

False; RAID is not a replacement for backups.

True or False: Data tapes are a cheap and easy backup solution.

False; Tape storage is pretty cheap, but isn't as easy or quick to access as data stored on hard drives or SSDs.

True or False: You will only need to do incremental backups by themselves just whenever.

False; You'll want to use frequent incremental backups along with less frequent full backups.

What is something backup systems can do to help save space?

File compression

How often you perform a full backup will depend on what?

How far back you want changes to be tracked.

The answer to what question will impact your long term storage needs and overall costs to maintain a backup system?

How long do you need to hang on to backups for?

Why are offsite backups strongly recommended?

If there is an unexpected event, like a building fire, the systems you were backing up along with the backup server will be lost.

If it's within your organization's budget, what is recommended for data backup?

Implementing both on-site and off-site backups.

How you go about trying to restore lost data depends on what few factors?

1. The nature of the data lost. 2. The presence of backups.

What are some of the reasons ensuring reliable backups for client devices is a bit more challenging than infrastructure devices?

1. There's likely to be a lot more client devices to backup compared to infrastructure ones. 2. There are laptops, phones, and tablets that won't be in the office all the time.

rsync

A file transfer utility that's designed to efficiently transfer and synchronize files between locations or computers.

File compression

A mechanism of storing the same data while requiring less disk space by using complex algorithms

Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)

A method of taking multiple physical disks and combining them into one large virtual disk.

Data Recovery

A process of trying to restore data after an unexpected event that results in data loss or corruption.

Post-mortem

A way for you to document any problems you discovered when recovering data, as well as, the ways you fixed them so you can make sure they won't happen again.

Which of the following should be included in your backups?

A. Firewall configurations B. A downloads folder C. Family vacation photos D. Sales database A and D

Storing data on a RAID array doesn't protect against what?

Accidentally deleting files or malware corrupting your data.

Where is it best to store backups, physically?

Across multiple locations

There are lots of types of RAID configuration called what?

Levels

Time Machine

Mac OS X full backup tool that enables you to recover some or all files in the event of a crash; it also enables you to restore deleted files and recover previous versions of files.

What do offsite backup solutions involve?

Making backups of critical data and sending the backup data offsite to remote systems in a different physical location.

What should disaster plans for a data-loss event involve?

Making regular backups of any and all critical data that's necessary for your ongoing business processes.

What type of storage system is usually used for long term archival purposes, where data isn't likely to be needed?

Tape storage

What are a great, inexpensive way of creating a lot of data capacity, while minimizing risk of data loss in the event of disk failure?

RAID arrays

What can address issues of onsite backup solutions such as when your backup data grows to fill that one disk or if that one disk holding all your backed up data fails?

RAID arrays

What is a fairly cheap and easy to maintain option for storing backup data on site?

RAID arrays

Backup and Restore

The Windows utility used to create and update scheduled backups of user data and the system image.

What should be documented and accessible so that anyone with the right access can restore operations when needed?

Restoration procedures

What does Time Machine support?

Restoring an entire system from backup or individual files, and even allows restoring older versions of backup files.

Why do you need to consider encryption and bandwidth with off-site backup solutions?

Sending data off-site means that you have to transmit the data outside of your network.

What are data tapes?

Similar to cassette tapes, these use spools of magnetic tape run through machines that allow data to be written to and read back from the tape.

Why is data recovery an important part of an IT system or organization?

Since data is a critical component of any business operations, as an IT support specialist, part of your role is to ensure that this data is available and protected from corruption or loss. So if something goes wrong, the organization can continue with their business operations with minimal disruptions.

Why are services like Dropbox, Apple iCloud, and Google Drive, great to use for user backup?

They make it easy for users to configure what files or folders they want to have backed up and then ensure the files are synchronized with what's stored in the cloud.

Where would you send backup data offsite?

This could be another backup server that you control in a different office, or a cloud hosted backup service.

What is the benefit of using incremental backup?

This is even more efficient in terms of both disk space, and time required compared to differential backups.

Apple has a first party backup solution available for their Mac operating systems called what?

Time Machine

What is one approach to backup solutions, which balances cost with convenience?

To archive older data using a slower but cheaper storage mechanism.

What is the best way to be prepared for a data-loss event?

To have a well-thought-out disaster plan and procedure in place.

With differential backups, over time you'll wind up tracking and storing lots of copies of files that change a lot, which will also take up more and more disk space over time. What is a good practice to avoid this?

To perform infrequent full backups, while also doing more frequent differential backups.

Besides differential backups, what is another efficient way to backup changing data?

To perform regular incremental backups.

What is the expense of restoration when you compress backups?

To recover data from a backup, it needs to be decompressed first. Depending on the size of your backups this could take a lot of time as well as disk space to expand.

What is your main objective when an unexpected event occurs?

To resume normal operations as soon as possible, while minimizing the disruption to your business functions.

What is one solution to user backups?

To use a cloud service designed for syncing and backing up files across platforms and devices.

True or False: Disaster Recovery Testing simulated events are the perfect way to discover any gaps in your planning.

True

True or False: RAID arrays can be flexible enough to allow future growth in disk capacity.

True

True or False: Rsync supports compression and you can use SSH to securely transfer data over a network.

True

What is the one disadvantage of onsite backup solutions?

Unexpected events such as a building fire.

How does Time Machine operate?

Using an incremental backup model.

If a device has been damaged, you might be able to recover data from the damaged hardware. What could this involve?

Using data recovery software.

It's a good practice to perform infrequent full backups, while also doing more frequent differential backups. What is an example of this?

We perform full backups once every week, and differential backups daily.

How does file compression help backup systems save space?

When creating a backup, all the files and folder structures will be copied and put into an archive. Archives are useful for keeping files organized and preserving full structure. Backups can also be compressed.

What is the difference between differential backups and incremental backups?

Where a differential backup backs up files that have been changed or created since the last full backup, incremental backup is when only the data that's changed in files since the last incremental backup is backed up.

What is the advantage of a differential backup?

You aren't storing backups of duplicated, unchanging data, only the files that changed are backed up which will save storage space and time to form the backup

Why would a full backup of data that doesn't change often be inefficient?

You're backing up multiple copies of data that isn't changing, which is a waste of space and uses bandwidth unnecessarily.

While it's important to have a backup solution for infrastructure and critical systems, what else do you need to think about?

Your users and their valuable files.

What command line utility isn't explicitly a backup tool, but commonly used as one?

rsync

On site, or self managed backups, could be as simple as what?

Buying a commercial NAS device, loading with a bunch of hard drives, and sending data to it over the network.

When designing a backup plan for an organization, how do you make sure to account for future growth?

Choose a solution that's flexible enough to easily accommodate increases in data backups.

What are some of the critical data that's necessary for business processes, that should be regularly backed up?

Customer data, system databases, system configurations, and financial data.

When can the approach of full backup be inefficient?

In the case of data that doesn't change very often, like operating system configuration files.

If you perform full backups once every week, and differential backups daily, what would be beneficial about this?

In the worst case scenario, you'll lose close to 24 hours of data changes, which is not too bad.

What can using SSH with rsync do that makes it very useful for simple automated backups?

It can synchronize files between remote machines.

How does Disaster Recovery Testing work?

It should have different teams including IT support specialists going through simulations of disaster events. They'll test and evaluated how well-prepared or unprepared your organization is for lots of unexpected events.

What is the importance of Disaster Recovery Testing, no matter the scenario?

It will help your IT teams test their emergency procedures and figure out what works and most importantly what doesn't.

RAID isn't a backup solution, what is it?

It's a data storage solution that has some hardware failure redundancy available in some of the RAID levels.

What happens if you discover that you aren't protected from data loss in any given testing scenario?

It's an opportunity to learn and fix this gap without risking real data loss.

Why is it that the space you save from compression will depend on what you are backing up?

Not all data types lend themselves to being compressed.

Disaster recovery testing should be a regular exercise that happens how often?

Once a year or so.

Differential mode

Only backing up blocks on the disk that have changed since the last backup.

What kind of data should you make sure to backup?

Only data that is absolutely necessary for operations and can't be found in another source.

What happens if you completely stop taking full backups and only perform differential backups?

Over time you'll wind up tracking and storing lots of copies of files that change a lot, which will also take up more and more disk space over time.

Various RAID levels prioritize features like what?

Performance, capacity, or reliablitily.

Full backup

The full unmodified contents of all files to be backed up is included in the backup mechanism whether the data was modified or not.

Why is it that recovery might be more time consuming when using incremental backups?

The most recent version of backed up data has to be recreated by integrating the last full backup with each incremental backup that follows. For super large files that are changing frequently this could require a lot of time to process.

Disaster Recovery Testing

The process of regularly testing the documented restoration procedures to make sure it works now and in the future.