University Web Services
Best Practices
Backups
Departments are responsible for their own backups.
Each Site Owner is responsible for ensuring the integrity of the data on its website. This includes data captured by forms and stored in databases or other files on the web server. "Ensuring the integrity" not only means the Site Owner must have a data backup plan, it must also have a plan for restoring the data in case of a problem with the site.
OIT does back up the web servers that OIT controls, but this backup is done strictly for disaster recovery—that is, for cases of flood or fire or server failure or other such catastrophe affecting one or more entire servers. This sort of data backup is not practical for site-by-site or file-by-file restores.
Security and Privacy
It is important to remember that the Site Owner is responsible for the security of the data that has been backed up. If that data includes information that is governed by FERPA or HIPAA or by some State or University policy, then care must be taken that the device on which the backup data is stored is kept secure.