Media Sets Question

[Mary_2]

Hi:

I run differential backups Thursday through Tuesday with a Full backup on Wednesday.

I have three jobs: Daily Diff, Weekly Full and Monthly Full (monthly is run 1st Wednesday of each month). There are three media sets associated with each of the above jobs.  Daily Diff Media set, Weekly Full Media Set and Monthly Full Media set.  Each media set having its own overwrite and append rules.

Jobs ususally run without issue except for the following: On 12/24 a full backup was run and completed. On 12/25 the Daily job did not run it was queued.  I thought the daily job would append to Wednesdays full backup.  Is it because of the media set? 

I am new to BE.  Am I not understanding a concept here? I would like to know if there is any way to set up the jobs so that it will append to a tape no matter what. We do have users who do work holidays and would like to get differential backups on those rare holidays.

If I only need one media set then how do I set overwrite and append times?  Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

Mary

[Kevin_Cotreau]

First, the job did not append to the Full because it was looking for a specific media set, and the tape in the drive was not part of that set. The job correctly followed the rules that were set.

How many tapes you have for each type of job? I am assuming that you have one to five tapes for the daily differentials, maybe one or more for the weeklys, and one per month for how many months? How many total?

What kind of tapes are they (LTO-3, DAT, etc) and are you open to buying more if they are necessary for a proper rotation?

How much data is backed up on a differential and how much on a full? How long do they take to do each type?

Is there any reason your full does not run over the weekend? When is the business closed?

Not that you have to do this, but if it comes up budget-wise, this is why I like autoloaders. For the really budget conscience company, you can usually get a great deal on eBay (buy only from people above 99% positive feedback and call them on the phone to be safe).

I got a super deal at the time on a new $5500 Superloader 3 LTO-3 drive for $1750 shipped. Similar products have come down significantly since then and can be had regularly for a similar price now, often using a Buy-It-Now.

Write back with the answers to the above questions and I will gladly tell you how I would do it in detail.

[Mary_2]

First, the job did not append to the Full because it was looking for a specific media set, and the tape in the drive was not part of that set. The job correctly followed the rules that were set. 

 Ok that is what I thought.

How many tapes you have for each type of job? I am assuming that you have one to five tapes for the daily differentials, maybe one or more for the weeklys, and one per month for how many months? How many total?  Daily Diff 4 sets (a, b, c & d) of 5 tapes (Monday, Tuesday thru Friday) - total 20 Daily tapes -  The 4 full weekly tapes are included in the this set.

Monthly - 11 tapes.

What kind of tapes are they (LTO-3, DAT, etc) and are you open to buying more if they are necessary for a proper rotation? LTO

How much data is backed up on a differential and how much on a full? How long do they take to do each type?  78Gb on a full backup almost 6 hours. Differential - 2.5Gb approximately, 48 minutes.

Is there any reason your full does not run over the weekend? We did not have to deal with the Monday holidays. When is the business closed? It is never closed.

[Kevin_Cotreau]

OK, here is what I would do:

I would create a media set called CompanyName-Append-Daily. Based on the amount of data you are backing up with your differentials, I would just add one tape in there. I would set the OPP to 0 and the Append period to 6 days. I would run this backup Monday-Thursday. This way you would not have to change the tape during the week at all. LTO tapes have a life of about 50 backups, but that is for the entire tape. You would not have to change the tape for quite a while because you are doing differentials (not to be confused with incrementals I hope).

I would create a media set called CompanyName-Weekly. I would add 5 tapes to this media set, one for every Friday of the month, including when there are 5 Fridays. I would set the OPP to 3 weeks and the Append Period to 27 days. I would back this up at 11 pm Friday Night when there are probably fewer people on site. Take this tape off site weekly. I have had a client burn down before, and they did not do this.

I would create a media set called CompanyName-Monthly. I would add 12 tapes to this media set, using one of the above daily tapes. I would set the OPP to 11 months and the append period to 11 months. I would set this to run on the first Saturday of every month and teach someone who is there on Saturdays how to change the tape. I would add a reminder to their Outlook. You could also run this during business hours if you don't notice any great performance hit.

If you are really open 24/7, you are even more of a candidate for an autoloader, or some service that backups over the Internet, than I thought. This would allow you to run special jobs like the monthly, or one specifically for off-site storage, during less-than-peak hours, and you never have to worry about holidays.

[Mary_2]

Thanks. 

I do know the difference between differentials and incrementals.

Our backups are run at 10pm. 

Thanks for your suggestion.

[Kevin_Cotreau]

Sorry, I was not trying to be insulting, but I have answered enough questions here where people did not know the difference, so I was checking.