Managing Media

[EvanNY]

A collegue and myself are trying to figure out the best way to manage our media, and realize media sets will be the best.

However, we are not exactly sure what to set them as.

This is our setup.

We have a tape for each day fo the week: M T W TH F .  This is an incremental backup
Then we have a tape for a a full backup: W1  W2 W3 EOM or a W$ then EOM.  We have this in a media set labeled weekly.  There are separate jobs for my full backups using this media set.

We hold onto the EOM indefinitly.  The weekly and daily tapes are erased when needed.

I then manually eject and insert the tapes on a daily basis;  then do an inventory to see if have i have enough space for the jobs.  How can i eliminate this step?

The other issue...sometimes i will not be in the office to change tapes, so the day before being out, i will put in two tapes.  How can we set it so each day goes to a different tape.

I appreciate any help in this matter...we are a bit confused.

Thanks
-Evan

[EvanNY]

I think i might have just realized something.  The way i have my backup jobs set will not allow me to use media sets and Overwrite/append criterias. 

I have multiple jobs going to the same tape daily.  I have created a job for each server being backed up.  Is this not best practice?  Should i create one big job with all servers that need a backup?

Thanks

[CraigV]

Hi Evan,

Nope...don't create a separate job for each server...this is what you should be doing, unless you really cannot:

1. Create 1 selection list containing all your servers. Select what you need too. IF you're backing up Exchange and SQL in the same job, then it's recommended you don't use Advanced Open File Option (AOFO). I'll explain what to do for this in #3.

2. Create a GFS policy, which automatically creates your Daily, Weekly and Monthly sets. You can name them if need be, and set retention times for this too. Select the selection you created in #1.

3. If you need to backup Exchange and SQL etc (any DBs), create a separate GFS job for them. You will need to create a separate selection list too (call it something straight-forward enough like "Database backups". In this second job, give it a straight-forward name as well, and then select this list. Your first job that will run will be in 1 (WITHOUT DBs) with overwrite media selected (if the media is scratch/up for scratch, it will overwrite the tape), and the second job will be set to Append. This will write to the same tape.

So it might end up looking like this:

a. GFS policy for files, System State etc - Selection list for those specific servers; AOFO on; Overwrite media (set your retention times for Daily, Weekly, Monthly). It runs first at a specific time.

b. GFS policy for databases (Lotus Notes, Exchange, SQL etc) - Selection list for those specific servers; AOFO OFF!!!; Append to media (set your retention times for Daily, Weekly, Monthly the same as in a. You also need to select the same media sets as in a.). It would run straight after the first job, NOT overwrite, but append data to the tape.

Reason for having the above is that separate jobs for each server causes an admin nightmare...let me know if you get stuck!

Laters!