Backup plans fell short during evacuations

Backup plans fell short during evacuations

• By Carlos A. Soto
• Sep 23, 2001

During the Sept. 11 evacuations of federal buildings, some congressional network administrators were instructed to leave their servers running but to take the backup tapes home with them.

One staff member said he was concerned about the personal responsibility of having to safeguard the tapes. It doesn't take much to damage tape media, he said, and because each representative's office has its own network and backup, such tapes might have represented all that was left in the event of an attack on the Capitol.

At the National Institutes of Health, securing the physical backup media was less of a concern. One worker said there are so many buildings and facilities that a uniform backup policy is impossible. He said he could not reveal what his own office's policy requires.