System Administration and IT Infrastructure Services. Week 5: Data Recovery and Backups

What's magnetic tape backup media best suited for?

long-term archival data; Magnetic tape media is very cheap, but it's also super slow and inconvenient to retrieve data from. This makes it a good option for archiving old data that won't be needed often.

What elements should a disaster recovery plan cover? Check all that apply.

detection measures preventive measures recovery measures; A disaster recovery plan shouldn't only have recovery procedures; it should include detection measures so that you can be made aware of an incident, along with preventative measures to help avoid a disaster in the first place.

What are advantages of on-site backups? Check all that apply.

there is quicker data access; One advantage of on-site backup solutions is that the data is physically very close, which makes accessing the data much quicker. data is more secure because of less outbound traffic; The more traffic going out of the network, even for backups, the higher the risk of data being intercepted. On-site backups reduce this vulnerability. there is less bandwidth usage; Less outbound bandwidth will be used if you aren't backing up off-site.

Which backup method saves copies of all important files and data at each backup? complete backup RAID array Differential backups Incremental backup

Incremental backup; Not quite. Please review the videos in the "Types of Backup" module for a refresher.

How can you recover from an unexpected data loss event? Check all that apply

Recover data from damaged devices; If a hard drive or device becomes damaged or fails, you can attempt to recover data using specialized software. If data becomes corrupt or gets deleted, you can also restore the data from backup. restore data from backups

What's the optimal recommended backup storage strategy?

a combination of on and off site backups; Ideally, backups would be stored both on- and off-site to reduce the chances of all your backups being wiped out in a disaster.

Which of the following backup types are most space-efficient?

Incremental backups; Incremental backups are the most efficient. While they start with a full backup, on subsequent runs, they only backup the parts of files that have changed since the last run.

What are good reasons to do yearly disaster recovery testing? Check all that apply.

to identify additional vulnerabilities; It's easy to miss things. If you discover a potential problem that could lead to data loss during recovery scenario testing, you will have the chance to fix the problem before any data is actually lost. to allow others with the right access to restore operations; Restoration procedures should be documented and accessible, so that anyone with the right access can restore operations when needed. If you aren't available, someone will have to restore operations! to be prepared for all possible snags or problems; You don't want to find out that you've missed a step or somehow rendered your backups invalid! Yearly recovery scenario testing will help pinpoint potential problems.

What's the intent behind writing a post-mortem?

to learn from mistakes and improve in the future; A post-mortem is meant to analyze what happened around an incident to identify what went wrong so it can be avoided in the future.

What's the purpose of a post-mortem report?

to learn from mistakes; A post-mortem report is designed to analyze an event in order to learn from mistakes.

Where is it best to store backups, physically?

across multiple locations; backups should be stored in multiple physical locations to reduce the risk of a catastrophe causing you to lose your backups. Typically, data would be backed up somewhere locally, and the backups would be replicated and stored off-site.

What should the timeline in a post-mortem include? Check all that apply.

actions taken before, during, and after the event detailed dates and times; The timeline should include actions taken leading up to, during, and after the incident, along with the dates and times when these actions were taken.

A disaster recovery plan is a collection of documented procedures and plans on how to react and handle an emergency or disaster scenario from an operational perspective. What are important elements of a disaster recovery plan? Check all that apply.

detection measures; Detection measures are intended to alert you and your team that a disaster has occurred that can impact operations. preventive measures; Preventative measures cover any procedures or systems in place that will proactively minimize the impact of a disaster, like regular backups and redundant systems. Anything that's done before an actual disaster that's able to reduce the overall downtime of the event is considered preventative. corrective or recovery measures; Corrective or recovery measures are those enacted after a disaster has occurred. These measures involve steps like restoring lost data from backups, or rebuilding and reconfiguring systems that were damaged.

What is the single most important part of data recovery?

effectively backing up data; One of the most important techniques you'll learn is how to effectively back up your data. Disaster plans should involve making regular backups of any and all critical data that's necessary for your ongoing business processes. Without data to recover, data recovery can't take place!

What are good detection measures to incorporate in your organization? Check all that apply.

environmental monitoring system performance monitoring; Monitoring the environmental conditions in a server room will alert you if things might cause problems for your equipment. System performance monitoring can also alert you to anomalies in requests or traffic to a server.

Which of these are components of a post-mortem report? Check all that apply.

explanation of resolution and recovery efforts; The report should detail about what steps were taken to recover, the rationale and reasoning behind those actions, and what the outcome of each step was. Including the rationale gives those reading the report more context on how the event played out. brief summary; A short paragraph to summarize the incident should be written first. It should include what the incident was, how long it lasted, what the impact was, and how it was fixed. detailed timeline of key events; This should include everything that happened throughout the event, like when it started, and when people involved were notified or realized what was going on. Every action taken in an attempt to resolve the situation should also be identified. Time and dates should be noted.

True or false: You can use a RAID array and use rsync to copy critical data to it for backups.

false; RAID isn't a replacement for a backup system. You may use a RAID array as a storage system in your backup server, but copying files to a RAID array won't protect against data corruption or data deletion.

Which of these should be included in your backups? Check all that apply.

firewall configurations; Critical data for an organization, like firewall configs and relevant databases, should be included in the backup plans. sales databases

What are the measures included in a disaster recovery plan?

preventive detection recovery; A disaster recovery plan should incorporate preventative, detection, and recovery measures.

What are good preventative measures to incorporate in your organization? Check all that apply.

redundant systems; Having redundant systems is a great preventative measure. If one system fails or goes offline, the secondary system can prevent a complete outage until the primary system can be restored. regular backups; Taking regular backups of your systems and critical data can reduce the overall downtime caused by a disaster. accessible and up-to-date documentation; Good documentation is considered a preventative measure, since it can avoid costly mistakes and make handling outages or system failures easier.

What are good recovery measures to incorporate in your organization? Check all that apply.

restoring server configs from backup following detailed recovery plan documentation; Maintaining backups of server configs will make restoring a damaged system much quicker and easier. Detailed documentation on how exactly to do this will also speed up this process.

Which of these are common backup tools you might consider when designing a backup solution? Check all that apply

time machine; Apple's first-party backup software is called Time Machine. Time Machine mainly supports an incremental backup mode. backup and restore; Microsoft provides a first-party solution called Backup and Restore. Backup and Restore supports multiple modes including complete, incremental, and differential backups. Rsync; Rsync is commonly used as a backup tool. It can be used for simple automated backups, and supports compression and SSH. Its main function is transfering files between computers.

Why is it important to test backups and restoration procedures? Check all that apply.

to ensure backups work and data can be restored from them to ensure that relevant data is included in the backups; It's super important to test backups and restore procedures to ensure that they actually work! Backup archives could be corrupt or inconsistent, preventing proper restoration. Restore procedures are just as important to test, to ensure that critical data can be extracted from backups if a disaster strikes. Disaster testing can also reveal any gaps in your backup coverage without risking real-world data loss.

Why are detection measures included in a disaster recovery plan?

Because it's important to know when a disaster occurs; The sooner you can be alerted that an incident is going on, the quicker you can take measures to stop it.