by David Danoff

Crashes happen. Do you have a plan? What would you do if your data were lost? Do you have a backup service for your servers?

The OIT Backup and Restoral Service will automatically save data and allow for easy recovery. The following platforms are supported: UNIX (AIX, Solaris, Tru64, HP, SGI), Windows NT servers, and Novell servers. Backups are performed on servers, not desktop machines. It is up to individual departmental server managers to decide whether or not to provide space on a server where individuals can save critical files. The server managers are also responsible for initiating recoveries when deemed necessary.

Backups can be scheduled monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, or nightly—depending on the amount, volatility, and importance of the data involved. The current rate is $5 for each gigabyte of data transferred to the backup server, billed monthly to your FRS number. The total charge will vary, depending on how often your data will change in the month. If the data will change several times, then copies must be transferred several times during the month, increasing the price. If there will be no change, then the data will only have to be copied and charged for once.

There is no charge to recover data.

You can choose to have everything on your machine backed-up, on the schedule you wish, or you can provide a list of different filesystems, each of which may have its own schedule and be billed to a different FRS number.

In the backup process, data are compressed on the client machines prior to being sent over the network. This means that the data will appear scrambled—no plain text will be available to snoopers. Then, the tapes of backed-up data remain locked behind steel doors.

Archival tapes of backed-up data are stored for about four months. The Backup Service promises to make a "best-possible-effort" to assist you in recovering your data, but it can make no stronger guarantees.

However, according to Jeff Jewett, the manager of the service, "We have been unable to recover data only twice in the last nine years, and we currently process more than 100 recoveries each month."

For more information, or to submit a Backup Request Form, please go to http://www.glue.umd.edu/admin/backups.html.

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