Backup Policy

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to maintain data integrity and availability of the college’s Information Technology resources, to prevent data loss within the limits of record retention requirements, and to facilitate the restoration of the Information Technology resources and business processes.

This policy shall apply to all members of the Howard Community College community, including faculty, students, staff, and contractors who use the college’s Information Technology resources.

Policy Statement

• System Owners must perform backups to support the recovery objectives of the system.
• Backups must be retained for no less than 30 days and no more than one year unless otherwise stated in the Records Retention and Disposal Policy
• Annually, System Owners must perform a test restore from backups.
  • No less than 1% of backups must be validated by the defined recovery objectives of the system.
  • Audited IT Resources are selected randomly.
• Application Owners must ensure backups meet the Records Retention and Disposal Policy and business requirements.
• Backup inventories must be maintained by the System Owners.

An Application Owner is the individual or group responsible for ensuring the application accomplishes the business objective. If a third party provides these services, the Application Owner is responsible for maintaining the relationship with the vendor.

A System Owner is the individual or group responsible for the procurement, operation, maintenance, and retirement of the server, operating system, or other elements that support an Application Owner providing services. The System Owner provides the technical infrastructure for data retention backups. If a third party provides these services, the System Owner is responsible for maintaining the relationship with the vendor.

This standard shall be subject to periodic review to ensure relevancy.

Effective Date:  July 16, 2026
President's Office Use:  Senior Leadership Team