Bank computer system

jim85

A bit of a funny question,

If a bank computer system totally fails how you can prove how much money you had in your account apart from a paper statement that got sent in the post. Do the banks keep paper copies as well just in-case this happens?

Ta

James

le_loup

They have things called back-ups ... just like you do with important data from your computer.

Mikeyorks

No paper copies. But they keep archive copies / journals of their electronic data in order they can recover it.

Aegis

You'll undoubtedly find that in, addition to back ups, data is stored in multiple locations to ensure continuity of service.

jim85

Thanks, some good information :-)

LongTermLurker

A combination of backups (non-immediate copies of data, often to a different geographical location), data replication (what gets stored on one set of disks gets copied immediately to another set of disks in a different part of the country) and distributed/virtual computing (a particular "server" can be in one location now but another location later and its disks can be anywhere).

So long as the technology's used, your account won't get lost.

googler

..and, in the case of a bank near me, an off-site data centre that looks as secure as Fort Knox......

ERICS_MUM

Most banks have a policy of "no single point of failure" in their computer systems, so if one part breaks down the work will continue to flow through alternative channels (sorry hope this makes sense, I'm trying not to use banking jargon !).

googler

Not just banks - I used to work for a large Life Assurance Co, and there were effectively two computer systems at different sites. Whenever anything was updated at the Primary site, an update was then sent to the Secondary site, which was effectively a 'mirror' of the Primary.

In the event of a catastrophic failure at the primary, there was an instantly-available working system at the secondary.

There were also tape and disk backups taken from the primary system on a rotating basis, with at least two or three backup sets on various sites at any one time.

LongTermLurker

ERICS_MUM wrote: »

Most banks have a policy of "no single point of failure" in their computer systems, so if one part breaks down the work will continue to flow through alternative channels (sorry hope this makes sense, I'm trying not to use banking jargon !).

Most companies (above a certain size) avoid SPoFs. And it's not banking jargon, it's technical jargon Well commented though.

The answer to the OP's question isn't typically what's thought of as avoiding SPoFs though - that term usually refers to multiple pieces of hardware or links, rather than protecting the actual data. The actual way the data's protected is as I mentioned above.