Week 5 - Planning for Data Recovery

Question 1

What is data recovery?

Answer 1

The process of trying to restore data after an unexpected event results in data loss/corruption

Question 2

What 2 factors determine how you can recover lost data?

Answer 2

1. Nature of the data loss
2. Presence of backups

Question 3

What’s the best way to prepare for a data loss event?

Answer 3

Have a well-thought-out disaster plan and procedure (like regular backups of critical data)

Question 4

What is a post-mortem?

Answer 4

A way to document any problems that were discovered along the way to implementing a disaster plan (for example) and how to fix them

Question 5

What 3 questions do you ask when backing up data?

Answer 5

1. What data do you need to back up?
2. How much total data do you currently have? Flexibility to accommodate larger data backups in the future
3. How often should you back up? How long to hold onto backups?

Question 6

What type of backups are recommended if they’re within your organization’s budget? (2)

Answer 6

Both on-site and off-site backups

Question 7

How would you set up a simple on-site/self-managed backup?

Answer 7

as simple as buying a commercial NAS (network-attached storage) device, loading it with a bunch of hard drives, and sending data to it over the network

Question 8

What’s one approach to back up time periods (how long to hang onto backups) that balances cost with convenience?

Answer 8

archive older data using a slower but cheaper storage mechanism

Question 9

What are data tapes?

Answer 9

Similar to cassette tapes, they use pools of magnetic tape run through machines that allow data to be written/read

Question 10

The standard medium for archival backup data storage is ___ ___

Answer 10

data tapes

Question 11

What type of data is stored on data tapes?

Answer 11

Data that isn’t likely to be needed, used for long-term archival purposes

Question 12

What is rsync? (Linux)

Answer 12

a file transfer utility that efficiently transfers and synchronizes files between locations/computers

(a command)

Question 13

Does rsync support SSH? (Linux)

Answer 13

Yes (to transfer data securely over the network)

Question 14

How can you use rsync for backup? (Linux)

Answer 14

It supports SSH so it can synchronize files between remote machines for simple, automated backup

Question 15

What is Time Machine? What backup model does it support? (2)

Answer 15

Apple’s first-party backup solution for macOS that uses an incremental backup model

Question 16

What type of backup does Time Machine support in restoring?

Answer 16

supporting restoring an entire system from backup or individual files

Question 17

What is Microsoft’s backup solution called?

Answer 17

Backup and Restore

Question 18

What are the 2 modes of operation for Backup and Restore from Microsoft?

Answer 18

1. file-based, files are backed-up to a zip archive
2. system image, the entire disk is saved block-by-block to a file

Question 19

What’s the restoration procedure?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What should you always do as a safeguard for your backups? (What is Disaster Recovery Testing?)

Answer 20

Make sure you regularly document and test your backups

(this process is called Disaster Recovery Testing)

Question 21

What are the 3 ways to perform regular backups on data that’s constantly changing?

Answer 21

1. Full Backup
2. Differential Backup
3. Incremental Backup

Question 22

What is a con of doing a full backup of data that doesn’t change often?

Answer 22

You’re backing up multiple copies of data that isn’t changing which wastes space and bandwidth

Question 23

What is differential backup?

Answer 23

Only files that are changed are backed up

Question 24

If you have differential backup, should you stop taking full backups?

Answer 24

No, you should perform infrequent full backups with more frequent differential backups to avoid storing lots of copies of files that change a lot

Question 25

What’s a good plan for backups when using full backups and differential backups so you only lose 24 hours of data changes?

Answer 25

Full backups once a week and differential backups daily (only lose 24 hours of data changes)

Question 26

What are regular incremental backups?

Answer 26

only backs up the data that’s changed in the files since the last incremental backup

Question 27

What’s the difference between differential and incremental backups?

Answer 27

Differential = files that have been changed or created since last full backup
Incremental = only data that’s changed in files since last incremental backup

Question 28

Which is more efficient in terms of disk space and time between differential and incremental backups?

Answer 28

Incremental

Question 29

How would you use incremental backups in a backup plan?

Answer 29

Combine frequent incremental backups along with less frequent full backups

Question 30

What are 2 cons of using incremental backups?

might need all, if one of the backups

Answer 30

1. Might need all incremental backups to fully reconstruct the files (since each backup stores a puzzle piece of a file)
2. If one of the inc. backups is missing/corrupt, might not be able to recover data any more recently than last full backup

Question 31

Why might incremental backups be more time-consuming?

Answer 31

The full backup and incremental backups have to be recreated by integrating both backup types to make the most recent version of backed-up data

(worse for large files)

Question 32

When creating a backup, all files and folder structures will be copied and put into an ____. Why?

Answer 32

archive, keeps files organized and keeps folder structure

Question 33

Backups can also be ______

Answer 33

compressed (not all data types though, depends on what’s being backed up)

Question 34

What can you use when you want to restore data? (2)

TV, serve

Answer 34

1. commercial NAS device
2. configure a file server with large amount of disk space

Question 35

Is RAID a backup solution?

Answer 35

NO, it’s a data storage solution with some hardware failure redundancy

Question 36

Is RAID considered a replacement for backups?

Answer 36

No

Question 37

What are 2 benefits of using a RAID array?

Answer 37

1. Inexpensive to create lots of data capacity and minimizes the risk of data loss from disk failures
2. Flexible to allow future growth in disk capacity

Question 38

Does storing data on a RAID array protect from accidental file deletion or malware corruption?

Answer 38

No

Question 39

What’s a good solution for user backups?

Answer 39

Use a cloud service designed for syncing and backing up files across platforms and devices

(like dropbox, icloud, google drive)