Twelve Quick Tips for Managing IT Disasters in Small Research Software Teams

2026-08-27

AI Summary

本文为小型研究软件团队提供了一份简短的灾难规划和恢复指南，以应对IT灾难和其他突发事件。

Abstract

In 2025, the US government launched an unprecedented series of attacks on its own scientific research groups. A year later GitHub dropped below 90% availability for the first time, while wildfires in Canada, France, Spain, and elsewhere forced researchers from the homes and labs. These events and others have reminded us just how fragile research computing systems can be, and that planning for disasters is one of the most effective ways to prevent them. This paper is a short guide to disaster planning and recovery for a small research software team. The tips assume you are doing everything yourself on top of your regular job, and that you aren't an experienced system administrator. Some of the tips do require that kind of expertise, but most research institutions have research computing groups, data librarians, and environmental health-and-safety offices whose entire job is to help with exactly these problems. This paper tells you what "done" looks like; they can often provide it.

Problem

• IT Disasters
• Research Software Teams
• Disaster Planning

Innovation

• disaster planning
• recovery guide
• research software teams
• non-expert administrators
• institutional support