This is an SLO assignment to gauge whether you really understand the concept of security in the term of backup and disaster recovery.
The premise is simple; how do we prevent loss of data and by extension clients’ information. There more than one aspect to this. The first task is to have some data and files available for recovery when users and hackers accidentally or by malice delete or change data. Loss or corruption of data in these cases could be severe but usually is not an existential threat.
The more serious and catastrophic long-term approach is dealing with disaster, which, in effect means what happens if the IT infrastructure is fully or partially destroyed. Events such as earth quakes, floods, fire, tornados hurricanes terrorist attacks can and do cause irreparable damage. After the 9/11 attack, 300 firms that were in the World Trade Center completely went out of business because their records were destroyed and could not be recreated, even though many of the principals and workers had survived.
In this quiz, I am presenting you with two different scenarios; two different businesses. I would like you to develop backup and disaster recovery plans for both. Look at the type of business, they are different and their needs are different. To make is easier for you and me, I would like a short listing and explanation for each item.
A few hints are in order here. Some clients need hourly back up so they can restore to a “point in time.” Also, just having solely Cloud backup is not always a good solution when you are faced with total loss of date, Why it that? Additionally, remember your RAID categories and apply as needed.
I will start you with item 1.
Daily, on premise, Backup of data
Now you will need to elaborate on that and additional steps you should implement. What data and how often etc. I can identify at least 5 different backup and disaster recovery steps. A short paragraph for each step would be fine. See what you can do.
The following are the two scenarios. You are required to do both of them.
A medium size criminal defense law firm in San Francisco. There are five partners, 50 attorneys and 15 support staff including an administration manager and an IT administrator. The company specializes in cases of murder, racketeering, grand theft etc. It also works with private investigators and has a large database of very sensitive information on clients, suspects, law enforcement and judicial officers.
A stock broker and financial consultant. There are 100 employees in three different locations, New York, Dallas and Seattle. Half of the staff is located on Wall Street in New York; the others are evenly divided between the two other locations. Remember the nature of business. When the markets are open, there is constant flow of transactions and trades happening. Also remember that they are keeping records of clients worth billions of dollars in total and any serious breach of security or data loss can put them out of business.
