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Therefore, every DRP incorporates a process for the backup our backup and restore process from end to end every day. and recovery of data. This policy and practice, while it takes time and resourc-

One of the core questions that must be asked is “how much es to plan and maintain, served us extremely well when our data can you afford to lose”? This provides guidance on how emergency response team was alerted to the ? re in France last often data should be backed up. In general, most organiza- month.

tions cannot afford to lose very much in the way of learning Disaster recovery planning is a large and complex topic, records. Therefore, backups should be frequent. At Marine made more complex by the decentralized and (often) discon-

Learning Systems our backup policy ensures that no more nected nature of maritime operations. However, the goal here than 15 minutes of data could ever be lost. And in practice, a is to raise awareness of the need for a proper DRP, and to failure would result in a loss window which is typically much highlight some of the critical issues that need to be considered smaller. To ensure this, automated backups are taken every 15 for our training infrastructure.

minutes, or more frequently, and are immediately transferred Until next month, sail safely.

to a location which is geographically distant from the live sys-

The Author tem. Automated processes are used to test and report on the integrity of the backed-up data daily. We also use a similar

Goldberg automated process to restore this data daily on an operational

Murray Goldberg is CEO of Marine “hot backup” server. This is a redundant, geographically dis-

Learning Systems which provides tant server which is always online and running, ready to take software and services to optimize knowledge, skills and behavior in over in the event that the primary server suffers a catastrophic maritime operators. failure. Not only does this provide us with a failover option

[email protected] when necessary, but it serves the dual purpose of fully testing

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