Backup And Disaster Recovery Quiz
Before reading any farther, please close your eyes and take a few minutes to imagine what would happen if you lost your IT Systems. Whether you’re a small, medium, or large business, whether you’re in healthcare, accounting, government, education, manufacturing, or service, what would happen if you couldn’t access your data or your email? What happens if your entire organization couldn’t access their data or email? What if it’s payroll day and you can’t pay your employees.
Precision Business Solutions would lose clients if our systems were down for 24 hours, would Read moreyou?
The following quiz will help you to grade your preparedness. We’re not completing a full assessment here, but simply focusing on some of the key items an organization owner or manager should be aware of regarding the protection of their data.
For this quiz, we’re going to assume your organization has at least one server (if not multiple).
- 1.
If you'd like to be contacted to discuss your results, please provide your name and contact number in the box below. Or, we welcome any feedback on our quiz.
- 2.
Do you have a complete and accurate inventory of your IT Systems, including where data is stored, and how much data you have to protect? Data could be stored in various locations, such as servers, computers, thumb drives, the cloud, etc.
- A.
Yes
- B.
No
- C.
Partial Inventory
Correct Answer
A. YesExplanation
Without an accurate inventory of IT Systems, it’s very challenging to build a backup plan which safeguards your data. If you don’t know where the data is, how can you protect it?Rate this question:
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- 3.
Do you have a data backup, or an image backup? A data backup is a simple backup, backing up your organizations data. Data could be files, emails, databases, etc. An image backup backs up the entire server, which includes data, but also the operating system, applications, configurations, etc.
- A.
Data Backup
- B.
Image Backup
- C.
I'm Not Sure
Correct Answer
B. Image BackupExplanation
While a data backup is a good start, it is only the start of a backup and disaster recovery plan (not to mention business continuity). In the event of a server failure, which could occur due to a number of different circumstances (eg. hardware failure, virus/malware infection, operating system failure, etc.), your organization could face significant downtime and expense in rebuilding and repairing the failed server. With an image backup, the entire system is protected, so in the event of a failure, the entire server can be restored to its functioning state, often times within a number of hours.Rate this question:
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- 4.
How often does an ONSITE data backup occur?
- A.
Continuously
- B.
Multiple Times per Day
- C.
Nightly
- D.
Weekly
- E.
I don't have an onsite backup
Correct Answer
A. ContinuouslyExplanation
It’s important to continually backup your servers, to avoid the potential for lost data and productivity. If data backups only occur nightly, and your server experiences a data corrupting event in the late afternoon, the entire days productivity may be lost. The cryptolocker virus is one of the top threats (ransomware), and would cripple an organizations data in this manner.Rate this question:
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- 5.
How often does an OFFSITE data backup occur?
- A.
Continuously
- B.
Multiple Times per Day
- C.
Nightly
- D.
Weekly
- E.
I don't have an offsite backup
Correct Answer
A. ContinuouslyExplanation
Similarly with the continual onsite backup, a continual offsite backup protects your data in the event an incident, such as a flood, fire, electrical surge, etc., were to destroy your onsite server and backup.Rate this question:
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- 6.
How long do you retain (store) onsite data backups? A retention policy determines how far back you can recover data, such as 30 days. For example, you’re using backup tapes, which are being overwritten weekly, then your retention policy may only be 7 days
- A.
Less than 7 Days
- B.
One Week
- C.
One Month (or greater)
- D.
I don't know
Correct Answer
C. One Month (or greater)Explanation
The retention policy is an important consideration, as it may be a number of days or weeks until it is discovered that data restoration needs to occur. If this falls outside of the retention policy timeframe, that data is lost. With the low cost of onsite storage, most organizations can cost effectively retain backup data for over 90 days.Rate this question:
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- 7.
Is the backup data encrypted?
- A.
Yes
- B.
No
- C.
I don't know
Correct Answer
A. YesExplanation
It is critical to encrypt backup data, both onsite and offsite. A backup is a centralized copy of the organizations sensitive and confidential information, and must be secured. Encrypting the data protects it, so if it were to fall into the wrong hands (or be stolen), the data would not be able to be accessed without the decryption code. Encryption is also a requirement for various industries, such as healthcare.Rate this question:
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- 8.
Do you backup your computer workstations (image backup)?
- A.
Yes
- B.
No
- C.
I don't know
Correct Answer
A. YesExplanation
While computer backups are often times less critical, due to the data being saved onto the organizations server, many times employees may temporarily work with data on their local computers, which may also occur with mobile users. While less of a risk, hard drive failure and system corruption (or infection) often affect end users. While no data may be lost in a computer crash, there can be a significant amount of lost time and productivity in having to rebuild the system and reconfiguring any customized user settings.Rate this question:
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- 9.
How do you know your backups are working correctly?
- A.
I manually check daily
- B.
Automated email
- C.
Other
- D.
I don't know
Correct Answer
B. Automated emailExplanation
Monitoring is a critical part of a backup plan, to ensure the backup is working as scheduled. Too many times we’ve seen a backup job fail, for any number of reasons, and no one being alerted to this status, leaving the organization unprotected. Any good backup system should include automated alerts and reporting.Rate this question:
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- 10.
Do you perform a yearly Backup & Disaster Recovery test?
- A.
Yes
- B.
No
- C.
I don't know
Correct Answer
A. YesExplanation
No backup plan is complete unless it has been tested and verified as working correctly.Rate this question:
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- 11.
In the event of a disaster, do you know how long it will take for systems to be restored to working order?
- A.
Yes
- B.
No
- C.
I don't know
Correct Answer
A. YesExplanation
In the event an incident cripples your server infrastructure, how long will your organization be offline? Can your organization survive if you’re down for 48 hours? How will this affect the products or services you provide? Will your customers fill their need elsewhere? While having a backup of your data is good, if you cannot use that data for 48 hours due to a server failure, resulting in the loss of business, is that backup and disaster recovery plan sufficient for your needs?Rate this question:
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Quiz Review Timeline +
Our quizzes are rigorously reviewed, monitored and continuously updated by our expert board to maintain accuracy, relevance, and timeliness.
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Current Version
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Mar 02, 2017Quiz Edited by
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Feb 03, 2017Quiz Created by
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