đź“‚ Store, Backup or Lose: The 3-2-1 Backup RPG
A Role-Playing Game About the Importance of Digital Preservation and Disaster Recovery
Premise
In this short role-playing game (RPG), you and your fellow classmates will take on the role of digital archives professionals at various institutions. Your goal is to ensure your institution’s data survives given various constraints.
To do this, you’ll rely on the 3-2-1 Backup Rule:
- 3: Keep at least 3 copies of your data
- 2: Use at least two separate devices
- 1: Where one copy is stored in a geographically-distinct location
Following the theme of threes, the class will be divided into three teams, each representing a different institution.
Once assembled, each team should assign out three roles:
- Roller: Rolls the dice during each turn
- Recorder: Records results and decisions made by the group.
- Reporter: Reports results at the end of the RPG.
🎲 Step 1: Roll for your backup setup
Roller rolls one six-sided die (1d6) to determine their backup preparedness. Recorder records the Roll and Backup Setup.
| Roll | Backup Setup |
|---|---|
| 1 | “One and Done”: Only one copy of your data |
| 2-3 | “Two-for-Two”: Two copies, both in the same location |
| 4-6 | “Three’s the Charm”: Three copies, with at least one off-site |
🏛 Step 2: Roll for your institution type & holdings
Roll 1d6 to determine what type of institution you are and how much data you need to protect. Recorder records the Roll and Institution Type/Holdings.
| Roll | Institution Type | Your Digital Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Small Museum Archive | 5 TB of digitized rare photographs |
| 2 | Public Library | 50 TB of scanned microfilm |
| 3 | Small Research Library | 50 TB of faculty research, dissertations, and special collections |
| 4 | Film Archive | 5 PBs of scanned film reels |
| 5 | National Archive | 10 PB of government records and multimedia |
| 6 | Historic Society | 10 TB of born-digital local oral history audio recordings |
** Step 3: Roll for your storage solution **
Roll 1d6 as many times as matches your backup setup (e.g., One and Done’s roll once; Two-for-Twos twice, and Three’s-the-Charm thrice). If you roll the same technology type twice, roll again until you roll a unique. Recorder records the Roll and Storage Solution.
| Roll | Storage Solution |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cloud Backup Platform |
| 2 | On-site RAID |
| 3 | Off-site Isilon NAS |
| 5 | Linear Tape Open Library |
| 6 | Drawer of hard drives |
🔥 Step 4: Event
Roll 1d6 again to determine an event that befalls your institution. Recorder records the Roll and Event.
| Roll | Disaster Type | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fixity Failure | Your morning fixity report warns you that the last day’s-worth of preserved data has failed. |
| 2 | Cyberattack | Repository software goes offline; IT investigating potential security breach. |
| 3 | Accidental backup corruption | A portion of your backup was accidentally overwritten with corrupted data. |
| 4 | Human error | A staff member accidentally deletes preservation files in a folder. |
| 5 | Hardware failure | One of your devices fails randomly. |
| 6 | Automation issue | Backed up files accidentally saved at a non-preservation level resolution. |
Confer with your group
Review your Backup Setup, Institution Type/Holdings, and Event. Spend 5 minutes talking with your group: how will you respond to the Event to mitigate data loss? Have the Reporter report out to class with their approach.
| Roll | Stroke of luck |
|---|---|
| 1-3 | Staff member actually kept a copy of materials on a random desktop: Add this to your backup setup. |
| 4-6 | Better luck next time! |