Play 14 - Choose a hosting provider to store and backup the data + consider alternatives to traditional hosting

Technical play for data stewards: Choose a hosting provider to store and backup the data.

Backing up your data ensures your valuable information is securely stored and regularly backed up, protecting against data loss.

• Research: Research hosting providers to store your data. Consider providers that prioritize sustainability and data ethics, such as Greenhost and GreenGeeks which emphasize #transparency, renewable energy use, and privacy.
• Evaluate: Evaluate the providers based on factors important to your organization including data security (e.g., encryption standards), compliance with regional data regulations, scalability to meet project growth, and backup and recovery capabilities.
• Select: Select the provider most aligned with your needs.

🌱 Each play stems from a takeaway from an case study, workshop, or other learning source.

Takeaway: Data ownership in practice has material requirements—somewhere to house the data and someone to maintain it.
Many organizations that collect environmental data do so because they have questions that demand answers; by collecting their own data, using their own hardware and methods, they can create their own data-informed knowledge and evidence. The concept of data ownership recognizes this #knowledge creation, and underscores who has authority to use that data and in what ways. This concept is powerful, but it loses its potential without the infrastructure to store, manage, and maintain that data. While open source solutions have become more available, each of the plays below either document easy-to-implement methods to retain data ownership and store data, or present opportunities to support data stewards in finding solutions.

Source: Community Data Playbook (Full report)