BasicGov / BLOG

Part 10: Data Availability. An outline about how data remains available and protected, even in the event of a natural – or human-induced disaster.

As part of the process of selecting software for local and municipal governments, it is important to consider data availability, backups, and redundancy.  This is especially important in case of a natural disaster, where you could lose access to your computers and/or data center.  You should ask your software vendor where your data will be stored, how often it is backed up, and whether there is geographic redundancy.  You will want to be sure that the data is frequently backed up, and stored in multiple locations separated by enough distance depending on what disaster you are mitigating. Eg. fire, floods and earthquakes are more regional, while hurricanes can affect entire coast lines.

One of the advantages of some SaaS applications is that the data is hosted externally, backed up frequently, and stored in multiple redundant locations.  In the case of a disaster both your application and data will still be available to you. All that is required is power in your location, a computer and browser, and an internet connection without the hassle of having to reinstall anything or having an IT professional restore backups.

Some of the key considerations in evaluating SaaS applications for local and municipal governments are:

• Data Storage:  The SaaS vendor should be hosting your data in a remote location, and this location should provide secure access to your data.  Some SaaS providers receive third-party certification for data and application security, ensuring that your data is stored in a secure location.
• Data Backups:  In planning for disaster recovery, it is important that the SaaS vendor have a multi-tiered approach to backups.  Data backups should at least occur daily, and there should be secondary backups in a secure offsite location.  If your data is physically stored in multiple secure locations, then you can be confident that you will have access to your data and your application in the event of a natural disaster.
• Application Availability:  SaaS providers should be able to ensure high availability for your application.  The SaaS provider should be hosting your application in an environment with reliable power and network infrastructure, a full high-availability infrastructure, and redundancy.

All aspects of the service are redundant from the location, network, servers, storage devices, databases and backups. This ensures that you will have access to your application and your data at all times.

SaaS and Privacy Policy

What’s the difference between privacy and security?  Security is all about who can access your data.  Privacy is about what people can do with the data they do have access to.   How do SaaS providers ensure privacy?

Because personal data is handled and stored by your SaaS application provider, you would want to know that they hold your data in as high or higher regard than you do. What governs and restricts how, when, what can be done with your own contact data and your municipalities’ constituent data (it is your data) is referred to as the privacy policy.

As a SaaS provider with a Salesforce.com partnership, local government software subscribers, not only have their privacy policy aligned with those of TRUSTe, the internet privacy giant boasting the strongest and most trusted privacy policy model in the business, but with Salesforce.com it is actually certified by TRUSTe.  This ensures that subscribers enjoy privacy protections in accordance with TRUSTe’s strict privacy principles, and that all customer information is respectively treated as though it were sensitive and not made available to 3rd parties for their own use.  Data is managed responsibly, while ownership of the  data remains firmly assigned to the municipality.

Click here to read last week’s post about SaaS and security.