localzuk Posted January 15, 2015 Author Posted January 15, 2015 No, there is an assumption that whoever is doing disaster recovery, if not us, is fully competent in the first place. In the timescale necessary - eg. "school is on fire, we need to contact parents, how do we do so?" that quite simply might not be possible! To assume technically competent people are available seems like rather a large risk in a document like this. I wouldn't let *anyone* near our setup if they were not experience/qualified enough to do so. Great, except you might've died in the disaster... So, your desire is useless in such an event. You can document everything under the sun but there is absolutely no chance whatsoever it will be enough for Jo Bloggs to get up and running. Which is why you build a disaster recovery solution for critical information that anyone can do. "Get computer, insert this disc, follow these instructions, you now have access to the critical data - pupil records, finance records and school policies and procedures". If your solution involves super complex recovery steps, then it isn't really fit for purpose to get quick access to critical data. The receptionist at the local A&E wouldn't be expected to get a hospital network usable again should something happen, why would it be different for us? There are 3 people in my school, myself included that I would trust with the MIS database, and none are not technical. Too much can go wrong for Jo Bloggs to go messing around with it. Because a school has however many hundreds of children in its care. If the school is relying on electronic systems for critical information, those systems need to be pretty much instantly accessible in the event of a disaster. After all, with the correct, concise information, anyone in the IT industry will be able to look at it, see everything they need to get back up and running, and do so. Great, that's what you want for the next stages of such a plan. I have technical competency levels outlined for every system, every step etc... So, yes, the majority of it requires someone with IT knowledge to do, but getting pupil data straight away is something that needs to overcome technical competence.
localzuk Posted January 15, 2015 Author Posted January 15, 2015 Got a BRP which is incrementally updated as the system changes, point is if there was ever a major disaster then I feel all you would require is the MIS data and the staff and students work as they would probably be hived off to other schools around the county. I couldn't see another school being built within 6 Months anyway so would probably be started from scratch with brand new systems. Interesting. Our disaster recovery procedure is a segment of the larger whole school disaster recovery plan (I wrote the IT part, our bursar wrote the other stuff). Other parts include temporary accommodation etc... Does yours not have those aspects in it?
bossman Posted January 15, 2015 Posted January 15, 2015 @localzuk: Yes ours is part of the whole school BRP and temporary accommodation would be managed by the LEA as we are still an LEA school and not an Academy so we don't have to worry about such matters. As I mentioned earlier if such a disaster happened to our school then our data would be accessible via offsite data backups alongside VM snapshots which if necessary could all be setup on rented virtual servers. I don't feel it would be necessary as I still feel the students would be hived off to other schools around the area and all they would have to worry about is having access to their coursework, I don't know what would befall the Teaching staff or other admin staff but I am sure the LEA would sort something.
zag Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 Veeam Backup and Replication Indeed, I just had a look at our plan that explains all kinds of advanced procedures to use backupexec with individual priorities for restoring servers one by one. Since we now have veeam its about 3 clicks to restore all 18 of our servers from an offsite backup The plan is now a lot shorter!
synaesthesia Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 (edited) I can't agree with the majority of that tbh. A hospital has many hundreds of patients too. There are (I believe, and of course hope) separate plans for the relevant staff to get that information. And yes, I said what I said with the assumption that all the technical staff perished. As said, it would be wholly expected that anyone coming in to get up and running again is technically competent because otherwise you risk creating further problems for the reasons I've already outlined. I am certain that giving a shedload of paperwork to Joe Bloggs to do certain things is higher risk than waiting an hour or so for a technically competent person to arrive and do that task. There's nothing complex about our setup for instance. If someone can't look at our documentation, see where the backups are, where offsite backups are, where the emergency passwords are kept, where the relevant databases are, basic networking information (and the rest) they are absolutely not the right person to be doing anything with that data. To repeat, the wrong person with that information could easily cause more damage to the data than a direct hit to your site with a missile. ** edit - Of course, only being human it's entirely possible there's something I've overlooked or misunderstood and am happy to be corrected as such. If there's any documentation anywhere such as best practice or guidelines regarding this I would like to be pointed in it's direction so I can ensure minimal risk. Edited January 16, 2015 by synaesthesia
witch Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 I have no idea whether we have one or not. That just about sums up my life in IT
JRowley Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 I have no idea whether we have one or not. That just about sums up my life in IT If you're not sure then it's worth writing a new one from scratch if you can find the time. Nothing worse than something happening and you have no idea how to respond, its better to have two plans than none.
witch Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 If you're not sure then it's worth writing a new one from scratch if you can find the time. Nothing worse than something happening and you have no idea how to respond, its better to have two plans than none. Nope Way above my job description, gov
elsiegee40 Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 Nope Way above my job description, gov For the IT recovery plan? Surely not? Who else could do it? You would have to provide the technical side.
JRowley Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 Nope Way above my job description, gov You're not responsible if it all breaks?
witch Posted January 16, 2015 Posted January 16, 2015 I am a lowly ICT Systems Tech (senior in one school, it's true) on a curriculum network that doesn't have any really important data etc on it. I have one server and standard backups that are not taken off site I know, I know So if the server went up in flames - everything would have to be built from scratch anyway. That's my plan then. "If the server is destroyed, buy a new one and start again" Done
kevin_lane Posted January 17, 2015 Posted January 17, 2015 Thats all well and good but I wonder how smt and teaching staff would take to that not to mention the finance department which would of have to re-enter all the data for the start of the financial year
elsiegee40 Posted January 17, 2015 Posted January 17, 2015 Thats all well and good but I wonder how smt and teaching staff would take to that not to mention the finance department which would of have to re-enter all the data for the start of the financial year An absence of a recovery plan doesn't mean there are no backups!
kevin_lane Posted January 17, 2015 Posted January 17, 2015 No I know but in regards to what witch was saying it would imply that her school would be well would not be in a good position and I think any person in charge of a network has a responsibility to produce one its just good practice however im sure she has backups hidden away some were
witch Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 No I know but in regards to what witch was saying it would imply that her school would be well would not be in a good position and I think any person in charge of a network has a responsibility to produce one its just good practice however im sure she has backups hidden away some were I'm not "in charge" of anything. I'm a lowly tech. I'm not network manager. My job description says I am supervised. So the invisible supervisor can do the backups. (NB I only look after the curriculum network which has no important data. The admin network is backed up by county....or somewhere...I don't know.Or care )
MrFrostmaul Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 We are currently redoing ours from scratch (as old one was pointless and like 7 years out of date). Anyone have any tips or advice what needs to be included in the plan?
howartp Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 What do people do about server replacement in DR, or where do you (plan to) temporarily host the data when your server room no longer exists? Our insurers would take weeks to sort out proper replacements - what do you do in the meantime?
tmcd35 Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 What do people do about server replacement in DR, or where do you (plan to) temporarily host the data when your server room no longer exists? Our DR says, since all out servers are VM's, we'd commandeer an ICT suite and use the desktops to host the VM's until the server room is recovered. It'd mean being 1 ICT suite down, but that's better than no computers at all.
localzuk Posted January 19, 2015 Author Posted January 19, 2015 Our DR says, since all out servers are VM's, we'd commandeer an ICT suite and use the desktops to host the VM's until the server room is recovered. It'd mean being 1 ICT suite down, but that's better than no computers at all. What happens if your school has burnt down totally? Ie. an arsonist has gone around and set everything on fire at once?
synaesthesia Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 (edited) That's an interesting idea @tmcd35; not a bad shout depending on the type of disaster involved of course. We've got enough spare servers knocking around to at least get up and running but should the disaster strike those as well, that's probably a worthy inclusion. * takes aim at our Media suite computers, already on RAID and powerful enough to do just that It does strike me how lucky we are having a split site; if any disaster struck both sites, that would usually mean an extremely focused simultaneous attack on both sites or something taking out the whole town. In which case, the data from the school would likely not be on *anyones* mind Edited January 19, 2015 by synaesthesia
tmcd35 Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 What happens if your school has burnt down totally? Ie. an arsonist has gone around and set everything on fire at once? I think there are more important problems to worry about in that scenario than how quickly the network can be rebuilt. We have off site backups so it'd be a case of a judgement call by the head what computers/servers are needed straight away. Next business day purchases from off-the shelf suppliers. And what can wait for insurance payouts and permanent accommodation. I think requisitioning some laptops from local primary schools in order to get a copy of SIMS functional would be the only real priority.
speckytecky Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 Good wake up call. Thanks. Aprreciated if anyone could share a decent one that can be adapted.
mdrabble Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 My previous place I had one, details of all the servers, roles, details like that. My current place - none what so ever! Will have one in place by september tho as re-doing the network from scratch in August (but busy planning now)
howartp Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 Our DR says, since all out servers are VM's, we'd commandeer an ICT suite and use the desktops to host the VM's until the server room is recovered. It'd mean being 1 ICT suite down, but that's better than no computers at all. I like that idea; the building that hosts the backups is distant from the main building so my plan has always been to commandeer that building for the admin staff to work in whilst the network is restored (as core switch is in server room so unlikely to be available) - the building only has 5 classrooms and three IT suites, one of which is ideal for commandeering for smaller VMs; the backup server itself is powerful enough to run SIMS's VM which is the biggest resource-hungry VM we have. ESX is quick enough to install on each desktop, then point Veeam at each desktop-host... done! Cheers.
newpersn Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 Dose anyone have one for me to look at? Think we have to get one typed up soon. (As we had a whole site power cut)
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