4.8 Be Mindful of Duplicate Data
For security reasons and in accordance with a Service-Level Agreement (SLA), it is often recommended to duplicate data to make sure it remains available if a problem occurs. This should be balanced with the cost of such duplication. Not all data is critical and, rather than overcompensating with multiple saves, duplication should be designed with efficiency in mind.
Criteria
- Data Backups: Backups of system and user data are both incremental and secure.
Impact
Low
Effort
Low
Benefits
- Environmental:
Limiting redundancy reduces the amount of consumed resources. - Economic:
Limiting redundancy can reduce the induced storage costs.
GRI
- materials: Low
- energy: Low
- water: Low
- emissions: Low
Example
- Incremental backups contain only files that have been modified or changed since the last backup. Furthermore, backups older than a specified amount of time are removed. A classic example of a backup maintenance strategy is the 3-2-1 technique.
Resources
- AWS WAF: SUS04-BP03 – Use policies to manage the lifecycle of your datasets
- AWS WAF: SUS04-BP05 – Remove unneeded or redundant data
- AWS WAF: SUS04-BP08 – Back up data only when difficult to recreate
- [GPFEDS] 1.6 – Strategy (Data Collection) (PDF)
- [GPFEDS] 7.2 – Back-End (Data Retention) (PDF)
- [GPFEDS] 8.8 – Hosting (Hot / Cold Data) (PDF)
- [GPFEDS] 8.9 – Hosting (Duplicate Data) (PDF)
- [GR491] 1-7005 – Data Backups
- [GR491] 3-8032 – Incremental Backups