One of Penn's most important assets is also one of its best protected.
The safe storage and accessibility of essential student data, such as transcripts, financial information and even admissions data, are often taken for granted by Penn students.
However, the recent disruptions to other universities -- in particular those affected by Hurricane Katrina -- have highlighted the importance of making sure that this data is secure.
A small team in the Information Systems and Computing Department at Penn is dedicated to keeping records safe.
Through continuous evolution and improvement, the team -- known as Systems Engineering and Operations -- has developed a system that should facilitate complete data recovery in the face of any disaster.
"There have been improvements in the area of making the recovery faster. We are constantly trying to achieve that objective," ISC Business Continuity Program Manager Tom Unger said.
Each night, copies of the entire system are written to a tape as a backup in case the main system goes down. In addition to the copy stored locally, a copy is sent off site to a New Jersey vaulting location daily.
Moreover, Penn engages the services of SunGard Availability Services, a professional data-storage and disaster-recovery company based in Wayne, Pa.
"What the recovery agreement with SunGard allows us to do is to recover any of the systems in the ISC data center within 24 hours," said SEO Executive Director Ray Davis.
The implication is that even if the entire data center at Penn were to go down, it could be rebuilt at the SunGard centers located in Northeast Philadelphia and Chicago.
Although Penn has never faced a problem with data loss in the past, it is important to be prepared for any eventuality so that disruption to the system is minimized.
"Companies have to have an execution plan to be able to recover in the face of a disaster," said Frank Casey, vice president of product management at SunGuard. "It is a very important aspect of an IT department in any company, whether it is a business, hospital or university."
Casey added that most universities and corporations have made the decision to engage the services of a disaster-recovery company and that the benefits of doing so have been highlighted by the recent problems faced by institutions such as those in Louisiana.
"We are helping customers recover their institutions and businesses there with a 100 percent success rate," he said.
Tulane University is just one of the many institutions in Louisiana that minimized data loss with an effective disaster-recovery program.
Despite losing access to their main data center in New Orleans when the city flooded, Tulane staff members managed to retrieve the data without any severe loss. It was then shipped to a SunGard "hot site" in New Jersey, where a backup server was soon up and running.
However, despite the successful recovery of most of the data, Tulane Registrar Earl Retif still feels that improvements can be made to the system.
"Things worked out for the most part, but I'm sure that in the future, we'll do things differently," he said. "This has taught not only us, but a lot of folks, a lesson. Ideally in the future, you should be able to throw a switch and have the alternative data center up and running within a couple of days."
