cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Advice to start the backup

hotelcalefornia
Level 4

Good day all,

I want to backup my data (current size=6GB) to an external tapes. i have a dell power edge 2950 server running 2003 server.

Can you please tell me:

1-What is the type of the backup drive i must buy (internal or external) and the model if it's possible?

2-How many tapes i need (to do the best backup scenario)

3-A brief how to use these tapes (daily, incremental, or weekly) and how many media set I must create.

Thank you in advance,

 

Best Regards,

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi there,

 

1. No need to call me sir...you can call me Craig or CraigV :)

2. No need to create a media set for everything you want to do. You'd create 1 media set for Daily backups, 1 for Weekly, and 1 for Monthly. If you create your jobs using the policy wizard, it will do this automatically for you, and make the changes to your retention periods accordingly.

The reason why I suggested you create a policy is that ANY rules that would need to be created by yourself, are instead created by BE. THis means there is no chance of jobs clashing and running at the same time. It also looks cleaner when managing your environment.

The only thing you need to be sure of is your retention period and OPP (overwrite protection period) on your media sets. If they are wrong, you're not going to have scratch media for another job. In your case, what you have set should be fine, but keep an eye on the jobs and when tapes are returned to scratch/being overwritable.

 

Cheers.

View solution in original post

10 REPLIES 10

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi,

 

1. With only 6GB of data to be backed up, you could go with an HP StorageWorks DAT drive, but this only offers compression of up to 320GB. If cost is an issue, this is the drive to go for, especially if you are not going to grow your data quickly. If your data is expected to grow quickly, look at the HP StorageWOrks Ultrium LTO4 drive which offers up to 1.6TB compressed capacity.

2. Best backup scenario depends on how long you want to keep your data for, but a Daily, Weekly, Monthly is advisable. If you're just starting out, I would do the following: 5 tapes for daily, with a retention period of 5 days. 2 tapes for Weekly, with a retention period of 1 week. 3 tapes for monthly, with a retention period of 2 months.

3. I would go for Full backups every day. There is no need to make this anything else. You would create a GFS policy (grandfather/father/son = Monthly/Weekly/Daily) which will populate rules automatically for you. Each day, before your backup runs, put in the corresponding tape. My dailies run Monday --> Friday; my Weeklies on a Saturday, and my Monthlies on the last Saturday of every month, and the rules created automatically ensure there are no clashes.

It really is as simple as that...

 

Craig

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi,

 

Any news here?

Thanks!

itsmeaffinity
Level 6

Hi

 

As per you above post if you have 800 gb each tape which I presume 5 then just make 3 media set like daily , weekly ,monthly

After doing that depending on for how long you want to retain the data please decide the overwrite protection so yes you are right you need to choose overwrite protection like 7 days & infinite allow append so in that case you data will be protected for 7 days

Now for you daily job like mon-fri you can point them to daily media set(FYI with backup option you can choose incremental on daily basis & on weekend one full backup job) & for weekdays job you can point them to weekly media set & for 1 month end job you can choose monthly media set(FYI for job at month end again do one full backup job)

I hope this help you to understand if so please mark this as solved

 

Thank You 

hotelcalefornia
Level 4

Dear sir,

Sorry for delay to reply you. i was out of the country and have no access to the internet.

I got an LTO (10 tapes) 800 GB each. as i understood from your senario:

5 tapes for daily:

That's means to create 5 media set (1 media set for every tape). Days: Sunday, Monday, Tusday, Wedensday and Thursday.

Retention period of 5 days for every media set. is that mean the overwrite protection period option?

2 tapes for Weekly:

That's means to create 2 media set (1 media set for every tape). Days: 1st Friday and 3d Friday for the first tape. 2d friday and 4th friday for the second tape.

3 tapes for monthly:

That's means to create 3 media set ( 1 media set for every month). Days: last Saturday of every month. 1st tape for first month. 2nd tape for second month. 3rd tape for third month. then 1st tape for the fourth month and so on.

I'm sorry to be so boring, but i'm new for the EXEC. please correct my if  was wrong with the above details.

You have mentioned somthing about creating a GFS policy. I'm new to this. but i will try to read about it and get back to you

thank you in advance,

Regards,

 

 

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi there,

 

1. No need to call me sir...you can call me Craig or CraigV :)

2. No need to create a media set for everything you want to do. You'd create 1 media set for Daily backups, 1 for Weekly, and 1 for Monthly. If you create your jobs using the policy wizard, it will do this automatically for you, and make the changes to your retention periods accordingly.

The reason why I suggested you create a policy is that ANY rules that would need to be created by yourself, are instead created by BE. THis means there is no chance of jobs clashing and running at the same time. It also looks cleaner when managing your environment.

The only thing you need to be sure of is your retention period and OPP (overwrite protection period) on your media sets. If they are wrong, you're not going to have scratch media for another job. In your case, what you have set should be fine, but keep an eye on the jobs and when tapes are returned to scratch/being overwritable.

 

Cheers.

hotelcalefornia
Level 4

Dear Sir,

Sorry if i wasn't clear in the previous post. i have 10 tapes (every one 800GB). i think 1 tape for 5 daily days  backup will not be enough in case somthing happened to the tape. please need your advice.

If i used CraigV plan. is what i explained before (my understanding) is correct?

 

Regards,

 

.

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...if you can afford more tapes, go for it.

My rotation plan is as follows:

 

2 sets x 5 tapes for Daily backups (retention period 10 days)

3 weekly tapes (retention period 3 weeks)

12 monthly tapes (retention period 12 months)

 

If I need something that is no longer available on a daily tape, at least I have the weeklies to fall back on.

If not, what you mentioned above will work until you can get additional tapes.

hotelcalefornia
Level 4

Thank you Craig,

I will follow that and let you know about the result.

Just to clarify one thing before i start. what you meant by retention period is "appened period". Correct?

You have mentioned the period (values) for the retention period in your first post. i will do the same. then still the OPP. what should be the value for the jobs?

 

Regards,

 

 

itsmeaffinity
Level 6

Hi

 

In the job go to general & select append to media & if not overwrite

 

Thank You

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Append period is the amount of time that can go by and data can be added to a tape.

OPP refers to teh amount of time that needs to go by before a tape can be overwritten...