Backups are fine, claims CenITex

Victorian Government IT shared services agency CenITex has rejected claims that its backup systems are riddled with problems.

(Globe Australia image by Vince Varga, Royalty free.)

More than a week ago, Crikey reported CenITex had not run a full data backup for the agencies it provides services to in more than a year, and had no disaster recovery strategy in place. The agency was formed in July last year and provides technology support to a number of state departments, such as Premier and Cabinet and Treasury and Finance.

"CenITex runs a regular backup regime for all customers which generally consists of differential backups run on a daily basis and full backups run on a weekly basis," the agency said in a statement late last night.

The agency said there were some applications and databases that it ran daily backups of. All backup data was written to tape on automatic tape libraries located in a remote datacentre, it added, with the tapes then taken to a third-party secure tape storage facility.

CenITex did not directly respond to Crikey's allegation it had no disaster recovery plan in place, saying only its DR plans reflected client requirements, which varied. "CenITex offers its clients the ability to design, implement and manage DR plans, but the details of these are confidential," it added.

Crikey had also alleged CenITex's use of a standard desktop operating environment (SOE) was creating headaches across departments with differing needs. But the agency said its SOE was actually designed to fix problems.

"The formation of CenITex in part is to facilitate the development and operation of a single SOE for all of Victorian government," the agency said. "This will eliminate the 'headaches' created across individual departments and their SOEs via machinery of government changes."

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