Disaster recovery for the K-12 education environment

by Mike Talon | May 15, 2006 7:00:00 AM

Tags: Mike Talon, disaster recovery, K-12, Disaster Recovery Newsletter

Takeaway: Mike Talon outlines some of the primary issues for you to keep in mind if you are designing a disaster recovery plan for the K-12 education environment.

When investigating disaster recovery (DR) for educational institutions, keep in mind that K-12 schools often have many different needs than their higher education counterparts. Budgets are generally much tighter, though not always—some colleges are still on shoe-string budgets—and campuses tend to be smaller. DR for these organizations is nearly always a balancing act between perception, politics, and regulations, and a very tricky balance at that.

Most K-12 schools have the luxury (in the DR business) of being entirely bound to a single set of physical buildings, often one single building. Without the ability to hold classes at this location, you cannot offer your services to your end users. This allows you a great deal more latitude in what types of DR solutions you need to put in place. Unlike corporations and other types of businesses that require immediate recovery because the business fails over to another location, K-12 schools will need to find alternate locations to send students, procure portable facilities, and take many other steps before the data in question has anyone to access it at all.

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The recovery of the New Orleans' public school system after Hurricane Katrina is perhaps the worst-case scenario for disaster planning. In order to place students temporarily and keep track of a widely dispersed student population, data from schools had to be recovered as soon as possible to aid in the overwhelming task of reopening schools, or moving students to new facilities.

State and federal regulations in the United States nearly always require that schools report on student populations and educational progress on a regular basis. While you'll probably be able to get an extension on time to file your reports in the event of a disaster, you will definitely have to recover your data in order to file reports by the mandated deadlines. Also keep in mind that the temporary foster schools, temporary staff, and interim locations will need the students’ records within a short period of time. So, while instant failover is often not required, data protection and restoration absolutely are.

Most municipal schools have the ability to share other municipal resources to aid in DR planning. Perhaps other state or local agencies can host servers that you can replicate your data to, allowing the data to be ready for access as soon as you’re once again able to use it. Large government buildings can be used to house off-site tape copies of data for eventual restoration, and municipal networks can offer bandwidth to accomplish your DR goals. In many cases, groups of county schools can band together to combine resources and protect each other.

Private schools may not be so lucky. Though you might be able to leverage state and local agencies to provide resources, more than likely you aren't going to be able to take advantage of these public resources. You still need to meet your goals, but there are other options. You can contract with the same types of companies that businesses use to store off-site tape copies, and if you're part of a larger network (such as religious or social organizations), you can often work in conjunction with other schools and organizations that belong to the same groups.

K-12 DR offers its own unique set of challenges to IT staff. You must be familiar with the laws that govern data protection and accessibility, such as the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). This TechRepublic download, "10 things you should know about the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)" will help you get started.