History of data sources, and backup policy
Each time a data source is changed, we log the person who did it, and what this person did (editing the mapping, removing hosts, …). When such changes concern the viruses, hosts, or responses, we also do a backup, so you can rollback the changes (see What is backed up ?). To see the logged changes of a data source, you have to be an editor of this data source, or its owner. If so, an History button is available in the Information panel of the data source page.
What is backed up ?
The backup focus on the core information of a data source, it contains :
Raw responses associated to each pair of virus/host in the data source
Note that this list can be extended in the future, but for now neither the mapping nor name and description are backed up.
What happens when you restore a backup ?
Viruses, hosts and raw responses currently in the data source are replace with the ones in the backup. It means that all changes (add, edit, delete) that occurred after the creation of this backup to viruses/hosts/raw responses are canceled.
What happens when I delete my data source ?
Your data source is completely removed form the data base, backups remain available a little longer in order to avoid data loss if the deletion was a mistake. If you mistakenly deleted a data source, you need to contact the VHRdb administrators (viralhostrangedb@pasteur.fr) in order to restore this data source.
Step-by-step procedure to restore a backup
Go to the data source page
Click on the History button in the Information panel
Browse the table of backup to find the version you want to restore
Click on Restore data at this point
You can download the backup and open it in order to be sure of what you are about to restore
Check the checkbox to indicate that you understand what you are about to do
Click on Restore the backup
That’s all ! Note that a new backup has also be done as, by restoring a backup, you just changed the data source.
Life cycle of a backup
A backup is kept if at least one of the following statement is true :
The backup is one of the 20 latest backups for this data source (and the data source is still in the data base)
The backup have been created in the past 18 months
Periodical summary of changes
Every day changes are reviewed, and owners get a brief summary by email of the changes applied to their data sources since the previous day. To avoid inconvenience, we do not send summary during the week-end.
According to his/her account settings (see below), a data source owner will receive an email notification after changes made by curators and editors, or just curators.