In this section

Backup and Data Retention Policy

 

Backup Schedule & Retention

Backups are copies of electronic data kept for the purpose of data restoration in the case of accidental deletion, file corruption, system failure, or disaster recovery. Backups of data hosted on university servers are taken daily. Full backups are encrypted and sent off-site on a weekly basis. Backups are retained on-site for a minimum of 56 days (8 weeks) and off-site for a minimum of 365 days (1 year). This does not apply to data stored using cloud solutions (e.g. Canvas) unless otherwise specified or data stored on user computing devices such as laptops.

Account Deactivation

When accounts are deactivated per the Accounts Policy, data associated with the user (e.g. email, files on personal network drive, files on My Drive in Google) will be deleted after a minimum retention period of four weeks.

Data Restoration

Requests for data restoration must include the business impact if not restored and should be submitted to the Technology Service Desk with information such as the file creation date, file name, file location, or date/time the file was deleted. Data from on-site backups have no monetary retrieval cost; data from off-site backups have a variable retrieval cost. Retrieving data from backups, on-site or off-site, will be determined at the discretion of the server system administrators and departments may incur a cost if an off-site retrieval is necessary.

Requests for restoration of data associated with the former employee must be submitted in writing by the former employee’s respective Associate Vice President within four weeks of the employee’s departure.

In the case of data restoration during disaster recovery, data will be restored according to the most recent full and incremental backups available at the time.

Data Retention

Data owners are responsible for determining retention periods that adhere to legal and regulatory requirements. Administrative records maintained on university enterprise systems may be kept indefinitely at the discretion of the data owners responsible for the information.

Legal Holds

When directed by the Office of the University Counsel, provisions of this policy may be superseded due to requirements from litigation, audits, or similar events.

 

Appendix

This section is intended to provide clarity on which systems are backed up by Technology Services according to the backup schedule described in this policy.

Some widely-used systems maintained by cloud service providers or hosted by external parties are listed below. Technology Services does not back up data for cloud-based services unless otherwise specified. However, most cloud service providers perform backups according to their policies or specific contractual agreements. Please refer to vendor documentation or service contracts to determine the backup and recovery practices of the relevant service providers.

If you have questions about a specific system not listed below, please contact the Service Desk. Data from decommissioned systems are generally inaccessible.

System Name Backed up by
Technology Services
Cloud Service Provider Comments
25Live No Yes  
Active Directory Yes No  
Canva No Yes  
Canvas No Yes Concluded courses are not automatically deleted. As an instructor, you may restore changes on a course by appending /undelete to the URL of the course homepage.
Computers - Faculty/Staff No No Computers being repaired, upgraded, or replaced may be backed up for a short duration.
Computers - Lab No No Data stored on these computers may be erased without warning at any time.
Google Calendar Yes Yes Backups are only retained off-site. 
Google Drive Yes Yes Deleted files remain in Trash for 30 days. Backups are only retained off-site. 
Google Groups No Yes  
Google Mail Yes Yes Backups are only retained off-site. 
Google Photos No Yes  
KABA (time clocks) Yes No  
KACE (Online Service Desk) Yes No  
Medial Yes No Backups are only retained on-site.
Network Shares Yes No On Windows computers, you may be able to restore files by right-clicking the network share or folder name, going to Properties > Previous Versions, and opening the desired restore point to retrieve individual files.
Okta (login) No Yes  
PaperCut Yes No  
PeopleSoft Campus Yes No  
PeopleSoft Financials Yes No  
PeopleSoft Human Resources Yes No  
Slate (Admission Portal) No Yes  
Snowflake No Yes  
Tableau Server Yes No  
TouchNet (Bill + Payment) No Yes  
VMware Horizon (vDesk) No No Infrastructure elements are backed up; data on virtual desktops are not retained when the user session ends.
Website (pugetsound.edu) No Yes  
WordPress (blogs, edblogs) Yes No  
Zoom No Yes  

 

Version History

Last Updated: April 2024
By Francisco Chavez

Date Notes
04/11/2024 Updated to reflect Google Workspace backups, add Canva, and remove Microsoft Exchange in the Appendix section. 
02/03/2023 Updated to include Google Calendar, Google Groups, and Google Mail in Appendix section.
04/19/2022 Updated information regarding contents of backup, schedule of backups, and deletion of data after account deactivation. Added statement regarding data stored with cloud service providers. Added guidance for data restoration requests. Added statement regarding legal holds.