Data Management Plan

The Computer Science Laboratory provides the basic computing infrastructure for 
the Department of Computer Science at Duke University. The lab staff is responsible 
for installing and maintaining all Department computers and providing all required 
network services within the Department. This includes data management, storage, 
backups, and archiving. Two Network Appliance servers, totaling over 40TB of storage 
space, house all primary data. The servers are located in both the Leon Levine Science 
Research Center (D126 LSRC) and the North building (N011) of Duke University. The 
primary storage system is a Network Appliance FAS 3160 located in D126 LSRC building. 
The secondary storage device is a Network Appliance FAS 3020 located in the N011 North 
building. Both of these buildings are located on Research Drive, Durham, NC. The servers 
are housed in monitored, climate-controlled machine rooms with physical security 
measures which include key or card based access. Key access is controlled by the 
Department of Computer Science, while card based access is controlled by the University. 
Online access to data is controlled using two Cisco ASA5580-40 firewalls and standard 
networking and routing procedures designed to ensure only designated servers can access 
the data. Online user level access is provided via standard mechanisms inherent in the 
UNIX operating system. Data is generally mirrored between the two servers. Online copies, 
called snapshots, of data are made several times a day, nightly, and on a monthly basis. 
Daily snapshot copies are kept for one month, while monthly snapshot copies are kept for 
six months. In addition to online snapshots, daily online archive copies are made and 
stored on an Oracle SunFire X4500 server totalling 42TB of storage space. The Oracle 
SunFire X4500 is located in D126 LSRC. Online archive copies are kept for at least one 
month. Access to online copies is controlled with standard UNIX access mechanisms. Offline 
copies are made using one of 3 HP Ultrium 960 LTO-3 and one of 2 HP StorageWorks 3000 LTO 
Ultrium 5 tape systems. Daily archive tape copies are kept for at least 30 days, monthly 
tape copies for 2 years, and bi-annual tape copies are kept for at least 10 years. Monthly 
and bi-annual tapes are copied and stored in one of two UL Class 350-1 data safes located 
in the LSRC and the North buildings. The tape safes are Sentry/Schwab Media Cabinets Model 
1856CTS rated to protect tape media for one hour at temperatures of 1700 degrees or an 
explosion with temperatures up to 2000 degrees.