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Grandfather Father Son and Autoloader Setup

finchstyles
Level 3
Hi all,

I am having trouble setting up a GFS policy with my new Tandberg Autoloader. It has 8 slots.
What would be the best way to configure backup exec 12.5 to work my with autolaoder. I have 20 tapes.

I was planning on creating 2 partitions on the autoloader (4 slots in each partition). Create a GFS policy for the sons (Mon-Thurs) and one for Fathers (every Fri) and assign it to the other parition.
This seemed okay in my head but there are 2 problems. How does the autoloader know to select the Tuesday tape for example from partition 1 then the wednesday etc.
Also how does the monthly backup fall into this - not sure how to figure this all out. I'm guessing I need to create 3 separate jobs?

This is my plan
Mon-Thurs (sons) - 4 tapes
Fri (Fathers) - 4 tapes
Last business day in each month (grandfathers) - 12 tapes.

Please don't send me links to documentation about the GFS policy and autoloaders, I would be grateful for some real world advice on how to set this policy up to work with autoloaders.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Luke_Cassar
Level 5
There is a policy already in BE to create son father and grandfather jobs. Combine this policy with a selection list and it will make the three jobs you require (after you adjust it a bit).

Basically yes, it is three jobs, with the output of each going to a different location and a different media set. The media sets allow you to control how long until a tape can be overwritten or appended to by another backup job.

The daily's go to your partition 1 containing slots 1 to 4, your weeklies go to another partition containing the weekly tapes and another partition which holds your monthly tapes.

Then your media sets come into play with overwrite protection policies.. If your daily tapes are used once a week, then give that media set a 6 day overwrite protection period. Mondays job will run and protect the media from being overwritten for 6 days.. so it wont be writable until next Monday. Give your weekly and monthly media sets appropriate overwrite periods (though you usually change these each week anyway so its less important) and then assign the tapes into the correct groups.

To start this all for the first time though, I put Mondays tape into scratch media so that the monday job will run and put it in the daily media set by itself when its done.. and did the same with tuesday through thursday as well as the weeklies and monthlys.. This way the job will assign them into the right groups and the media should recycle automatically.

Once you have done this, your tapes will become overwritable at the correct day for the backup to run on it every week/month/year and you should be on your way!

Good luck!


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1 REPLY 1

Luke_Cassar
Level 5
There is a policy already in BE to create son father and grandfather jobs. Combine this policy with a selection list and it will make the three jobs you require (after you adjust it a bit).

Basically yes, it is three jobs, with the output of each going to a different location and a different media set. The media sets allow you to control how long until a tape can be overwritten or appended to by another backup job.

The daily's go to your partition 1 containing slots 1 to 4, your weeklies go to another partition containing the weekly tapes and another partition which holds your monthly tapes.

Then your media sets come into play with overwrite protection policies.. If your daily tapes are used once a week, then give that media set a 6 day overwrite protection period. Mondays job will run and protect the media from being overwritten for 6 days.. so it wont be writable until next Monday. Give your weekly and monthly media sets appropriate overwrite periods (though you usually change these each week anyway so its less important) and then assign the tapes into the correct groups.

To start this all for the first time though, I put Mondays tape into scratch media so that the monday job will run and put it in the daily media set by itself when its done.. and did the same with tuesday through thursday as well as the weeklies and monthlys.. This way the job will assign them into the right groups and the media should recycle automatically.

Once you have done this, your tapes will become overwritable at the correct day for the backup to run on it every week/month/year and you should be on your way!

Good luck!