Backup Exec 12.5, Encryption, LTO4

[Bigsease30]

Hello All,

I have a quick question for the community. We currently have a windows 2003 server being backed up by Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 to several LTO4 tape back up disks. We have been using this setup for the last 2 years and it has been working flawless.

The question that I have it when this was setup originally it was created with a policy with encryption turned off. If I edit the current policy and turn encryption on will it mess up the current data on the backup tapes, encrypt the entire disk or just the new data backed up?

Is there a downside to this process?

Thanks in advance.

Bigsease30

[AmolB · Accepted solution]

 If I edit the current policy and turn encryption on will it mess up the current data on the backup tapes, encrypt the entire disk or just the new data backed up?

Only new data will be encrypted. Old data on the tapes will be untouched.

[Donald_Eady]

As mentioned above the old data will not be affected and you will be able to restore with out a passphrase. All data that is backed up after the encryption is applied will require the passphrase to restore from so be sure to document and secure the passphrase. Addtionally the encryption of data will make your backup sets larger/take up more space on your tapes. You also need to make sure that if you doing any type of software encryption and youre planning on doing compression as well be sure that the compression is software as well. 

Check out the following Tech Doc

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH83239

[Bigsease30]

Thank you both for the information provided.

-Bigsease30