Uses of backup and restore
While the prime purpose of backups is the recovery of data in case of loss, there are a number of applications that can be carried out using some of the techniques covered in this chapter. We are going to briefly describe two of them:
The year-end procedure
Most organizations have some sort of year-end procedure in place. This might be at the end of an academic year, a term, financial year, or in the case of roll-on-roll-off setups, on a monthly basis. Given the nature and importance of the procedure, it is vital that each step is planned well in advance. The key considerations are:
- When do you run the year-end procedure?
- What has to be done?
- Who is involved?
- Where will the archives go?
The following is a list of some typical steps that might or might not apply to your setup. It gives you an idea of how such a procedure may look and demonstrates the importance of the backup facility:
- Archive: Create full backups of all courses and even consider including a system backup...
