Database Retention Question... on Amazon RDS

P.S. A quick google search turned up one related article here https://www.ediscoverylaw.com/2017/02/court-grants-motion-to-compel-reproduction-in-requested-format/

On Mon, May 1, 2017 at 2:24 PM, Dimensional DBA <dimensional.dba_at_comcast.net
> wrote:

> I have a worked at a few companies that has mothballed complete systems
> including SW as you don’t know if even the hardware will run the software
> any more depending on the OS you are running (AIX, HPUX, etc)
>
>
>
> This has been a standard problem since the Dec 2007 Supreme court ruling
> on evidence being available in its native electronic form.
>
>
>
> If your company isn’t using one of the email programs that duplicate all
> email or haven’t turned on MRM in MS Exchange then you may already be in
> violation of
>
> “They insist we keep every version of every email because deleting any is
> considered “destroying evidence”. “
>
>
>
> Compliance is fairly straight forward from a database perspective in you
> ensuring you have backups and that you test the backups. Everything else
> falls in someone else’s area of concern such as the backup team, the email
> team and the legal team in reviewing processes to meet current to data
> compliance rules that morph over time based on ongoing court cases.
>
>
>
> Saving the VM images may be problematic also as the versions of the VMWare
> ops center moves upward not always being fully backwards compatible older
> images. Keeping a copy running can be problematic if something goes wrong
> and you have to rebuild and don’t have all the components to do so.
>
>
>
>
>
> Normally there is no legal requirement to keep it online, that part is
> probably from your legal team, but in reality when you get to the keeping
> of all versions of the backups, you are not keeping a live version of the
> system at each backup point online only the last running version of the
> system.
>
>
>
> You can always take that last running backup of the system and continue to
> upgrade the database SW and the OS, so that you don’t have worry about age
> out, but that doesn’t help you with
>
>
>
> In some cases this is not a technical problem anymore. I have seen legal
> teams use programs to save off the email into single file pdf format
> instead of maintaining them in the original Email systems.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_
> freelists.org] *On Behalf Of *Scott Canaan
> *Sent:* Monday, May 1, 2017 6:27 AM
>
> True, but that’s not my call.
>
>
>
>
> *From:* oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_
> freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org>] *On Behalf Of *Reen,
> Elizabeth
> *Sent:* Monday, May 01, 2017 9:24 AM
>
>
>
> This is where calculating the cost of fighting it vs settling
> comes in. Sometimes settling is cheaper.
>
>
>
> Liz
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Scott Canaan [mailto:srcdco_at_rit.edu <srcdco_at_rit.edu>]
> *Sent:* Monday, May 01, 2017 9:19 AM
>
>
>
> There is no pushing back on the lawyers. They insist we keep every
> version of every email because deleting any is considered “destroying
> evidence”. They (and the courts) don’t care about cost or technical
> issues. When they want the data, we have to supply it or get fined and,
> most likely, lose whatever case is against us. In this case the data being
> saved is the timekeeping system for hourly employees.
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Reen, Elizabeth [mailto:elizabeth.reen_at_citi.com
> <elizabeth.reen_at_citi.com>]
> *Sent:* Monday, May 01, 2017 9:16 AM
>
>
>
> Agreed, wish I had that option 10 years ago. Push back on the lawyers.
> Do they really need all of the backups or will a couple suffice. They tend
> to be very conservative about preserving evidence.
>
>
>
> Liz
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Scott Canaan [mailto:srcdco_at_rit.edu <srcdco_at_rit.edu>]
> *Sent:* Monday, May 01, 2017 8:59 AM
>
>
>
> This was one of the first things we thought of, however there are 28
> backups to keep running (4 databases x 7 days each), which becomes
> unwieldly very quickly.
>
>
>
> What we are looking at doing is putting all 4 databases into one VM, then
> taking a VM snapshot of the entire environment, which gets us down to 7
> snapshots to save and that way the O/S and Oracle software are also
> preserved with the databases. That’s what I’ve gathered from the responses
> here is the best way to go.
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Reen, Elizabeth [mailto:elizabeth.reen_at_citi.com
> <elizabeth.reen_at_citi.com>]
> *Sent:* Friday, April 28, 2017 4:29 PM
>
>
>
> What I have ended up doing is just keeping the copy on a
> database, upgrading and patching as needed. Expensive, yes. Data always
> available, yes. What you have to lose if you lose the case should dictate
> how you keep the data.
>
>
>
> Liz
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_
> freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org>] *On Behalf Of *Scott Canaan
> *Sent:* Thursday, April 27, 2017 1:16 PM
> *To:* oracle-l_at_freelists.org
> *Subject:* Database Retention Question
>
>
>
> We are trying to find a workable solution to a rather large problem. One
> system has an Oracle database in Red Hat 6 and Oracle 11.2.0.4. Last
> August, there was a legal request to freeze 28 different backups of this
> database. That was done by the systems team, via CommVault (using RMAN).
> By asking more questions, it has come to light that any and / or all of
> those backups need to be quickly accessible as Oracle databases until Aug.
> 31, 2023. When I mentioned to our legal department that there’s no way
> that I can guarantee that whatever version of Oracle we’ll be using in 5,
> 6, 7 years will be able to even open the database files, the response was
> “you have to guarantee that the data is available if required in a
> lawsuit. No excuses are accepted by the courts.”.
>
>
>
> We’ve toyed with a couple of possible options. One is to keep a Red Hat 6
> / Oracle 11.2.0.4 environment running until Sept. 1, 2023, which the SAs
> hate (not to mention the Security Office). Another is to restore from
> backup and upgrade along with other database upgrades and take a new frozen
> backup, which we aren’t keen on doing 28 times.
>
>
>
> Does anyone have any other ideas on how to save these backups and
> guarantee that they are usable through Aug. 31, 2023? I’d appreciate any
> thoughts.
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>

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