UK Secondary Schools Fail Off-Site Data Backup Test

Written by Martin Courtney
November 25, 2009

Many do not replicate pupil and teacher files in accordance with Becta rules

Many secondary schools are failing to heed rules on information storage set out by government agency Becta by not keeping off site backups of their data.

A survey of 108 secondary school network managers was published this week by RM Data Solutions, a company which specialises in providing consultancy and IT services to the education sector.

It found that the average secondary school will see demand for data storage capacity increase by 75 per cent, from 2TB currently to 3.5TB by 2012, putting considerable strain on storage resources.

And 33 per cent of those questioned in the survey said they have yet to implement written backup and disaster recovery strategies, despite Becta rules insisting that data be replicated off site.

“The focus of this research was on the storage side, but what came out was that schools are mixed when it comes to backup,” said Jon Gould, product manager for hardware solutions at RM Education.

“Becta has guidelines on backup that have not been refreshed for around five years, and it is generally thought that they need updating. Lots of schools do not know about those guidelines - which insist that a copy of the data is taken off site in case the school burns down - and are not abiding by them.”

Becta (formerly the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) promotes the use of IT in learning.

Many of its backup guidelines are exactly that, but they also insist that …

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