S 4.173 Regular function and recovery tests for archiving

Initiation responsibility: Head of IT, Archive Administrator

Implementation responsibility: Archive Administrator, Head of IT, Administrator

Data may be lost during archiving due to different reasons regarding data media, hardware, or the program sequence. Therefore, regular function and recovery tests are indispensable.

Just like all other archiving components, data media are subject to wear and tear and should therefore be checked for readability and integrity at least once a year.

If errors on an archiving medium are detected, it must be ensured immediately that the affected files are restored from the backup. If faulty archiving data media require replacement, these must be deleted and/or destroyed securely after having copied the data contained thereon (see also S 2.167 Selecting suitable methods for deleting or destroying data). The entire procedure must be documented.

All hardware components, particularly the mechanic part of the archive, must be checked for proper functionality at regular intervals. This is the only way to ensure that archived databases correspond to the required availability requirements and that data integrity is guaranteed when writing and reading the data.

The archiving procedure itself may be faulty. Possible causes include the following: configuration errors, software malfunctions (e.g. when using new programs), problems regarding the storage media, or changes and errors in the job control. Therefore, it must be checked on a daily basis whether all archiving processes were performed without any errors. This may be done by analysing the log files, as well as randomly reviewing the generated archiving media by the Administrator.

The required integrity checks of the index database are described in safeguard S 4.171 Protection of the integrity of the archive system index database.

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