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736 Chapter 12 • Operational and Organizational Security: Policies and Disaster Recovery

EXAM WARNING

Backups are an important part of disaster recovery, so it is possible there
will be a question or two dealing with this topic. Remember that copies
of backups must be stored in offsite locations. If the backups are not
kept in offsite storage, they can be destroyed with the original data in a
disaster. Offsite storage ensures backups are safe until the time they are
needed.
Data is only as good as its ability to be restored. If it cannot be
restored, the work performed to maintain backups was pointless. The
time to ensure that backups can be restored is not during a disaster. Test
restores should be performed to determine the integrity of data, and to
ensure that the restore process actually works.

Secure Recovery

Recovering from a disaster can be a time consuming process with many unknown
variables. If a virus, intruder, or other incident has adversely affected a small amount
of data, it can be relatively simple to restore data from a backup and replace the
damaged information. However, when disasters occur, hardware may also be
destroyed, making it more difficult to restore the system to its previous condition.
Dealing with damaged hardware will vary in complexity, depending on the
availability of replacement equipment and the steps required when restoring data to
the network. Some companies may have additional servers with identical configu-
rations to damaged ones, for use as replacements when incidents occur. Other
companies may not be able to afford such measures, or do not have enough addi-
tional servers to replace damaged ones. In such cases, the administrator may have to
put data on other servers, and then configure applications and drive mappings so
the data can be accessed from the new location.Whatever the situation, administra-
tors should try to anticipate such instances in their disaster recovery plan, and
devise contingency plans to deal with such problems when they arise.
Administrators also need to determine how data will be restored from backups.
There are different types of backups that can be performed. Each of these take dif-
fering lengths of time to restore, and may require additional work.When full
backups are performed, all of the files are backed up.

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