Sustainable Backup Solutions for Higher Education in Afghanistan

It is important for higher education to give the facility to users for their data (projects, researches) to be saved during their studies or works in the universities. The purpose of this study was to provide a cost neutral backup solution for higher education by using the existing resources in Afghan universities. The iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) and NBD (Network Block Device) were tested, compared and evaluated according to their performances and reliabilities. Both simulate the remote devices like the local block devices and are used to transmit data over local area networks. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) levels were studied for the purpose of increasing fault tolerance for the devices. The RAID level 1 and level 5 have been implemented on both iSCSI and NBD accordingly. The backup application called sbackup (Simple Backup) which is also an open source software is chosen to backup on the remote devices. At the end concluding to prefer a solution which is quite easy to implement and suitable for the purpose.