Ex Libris offers an optional premium service - Alma Local Backup.

Customers that subscribe to this optional premium service will be able to request - up to once a quarter - a backup copy file of their production data for local backup purposes.

For more details see the Online Help - here (https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/...a_Local_Backup)

See details about backup strategies here.

Part of the overall Ex Libris recovery plan includes the recovery of the entire institution’s data to the last point a backup was taken. Ex Libris takes several data snapshots per day and also maintains a full backup at an offsite remote secured location. This data includes the entire institution's data and configuration.

Alma is a true multi-tenant solution, and as such the complete data of all of Alma customers is backed up together. Recovery of a customer’s specific data can be done on several levels, depending on the nature of the recovery needed.

Alma is a true multi-tenant solution, and as such the complete data of all of Alma customers is backed up together. Recovery of a customer’s specific data can be done on several levels, depending on the nature of the recovery needed.

In some cases, customers can use their most recent exports of their bibliographic and holding records in order to load them again to Alma as a means for recovery. Or, for example, when patron records are loaded from the institutional student information system, the SIS can serve as a source for recovery of student data. In rare cases where data recovery is required and the customer cannot utilize any of Alma’s existing capabilities, the customer is asked to open a support case for data recovery, which is handled by Ex Libris engineers. If the recovery is possible (this depends on the nature of the data loss and its dependency on other data elements in the system), then Ex Libris engineers will recover the data or advise the customer on ways they can do it. In general, Ex Libris does not charge for data recovery requests as long as these are a rare occurrence.

 

Ex Libris is responsible for recovery, and maintains a business continuity plan which is implemented following a disruption to service. The Ex Libris cloud services group has classified disasters and emergencies into the following three levels – minor, major and catastrophic:

Minor Disaster - A minor disaster is characterized by an expected downtime of no more than 48 hours. Damage can be to hardware, software, and/or operating environment.

Ex Libris cloud services could be restored to normal operations at the primary site and repairs can be started as soon as possible:

Major Disaster - A major disaster is characterized by an expected downtime of more than 48 hours but less than 7 days. A major disaster will normally have extensive damage to system hardware, software, networks, and/or operating environment. Ex Libris cloud services could be restored to normal operation with the assistance of certain recovery teams who will be called to direct restoration of normal operations at the primary site.

Catastrophic Disaster - A catastrophic disaster is characterized by expected downtime of greater than 7 days. The facility is destroyed to the extent that an alternate facility must be used.

Damage to the system hardware, software, and/or operating environment requires total replacement / renovation of all impacted systems. The implementation of the Disaster Recovery Plan in a remote recovery site is required to restore Ex Libris cloud services to normal operation.

In the event of a major or catastrophic event, data recovery is performed using backups retrieved from the disaster site from the offsite backup locations. After identifying salvageable equipment, early data recovery efforts first focus on restoring the operating system(s) for each system. Next, mission critical system data is restored. After system data is restored, individual customer data is restored.

Ex Libris provides a uniform SLA for all the customers using the multi-tenant SaaS service and as such we don’t have different tiers for backup and restore services.

In case of a need for a complete recovery, Ex Libris will make an effort to recover the customer’s environment as soon as possible. Depending on the nature of the disaster, the recovery may take between few hours to several days and is based on the full backup that is made on a daily basis to our cloud environment.

Specifically for bibliographic records – Alma supports versioning. Every change either manual done using the metadata editor or a batch change create a new version of the bibliographic record. Using the metadata editor, staff users can view previous versions and restore a specific previous version.

In general restore processes from backups are based on a “full restore” process – because of data integrity considerations (connections between data elements etc.) we don’t perform a “partial restore” process. Only in rare circumstances, a “partial restore” will be considered if it is considered to be the best restore approach for that specific scenario.

See DR Strategy for Catastrophic Disaster here.