backup exec 2012 and robotic tape library

[Tom83]

hello everybody,

congratulations to the forum and you're all professional, I am at my first experience with (robotic library, 30 cartridge)+ (Symantec backup exec 2012 and Agent for Hyper-v)

My network is as follows:
(number 1 physical server) dedicated to Symantec Backup Exec 2012.
(number 2 physical servers) are the two nodes in the cluster with Microsoft Hyper-V.
(number 10 virtual servers) servers are managed by Hyper-V high availability.

I have read the entire manual (Administrator's Guide) and I realized that the key parts to create a backup strategy are 3 different levels:
1) Use the PARTITIONS LIBRARY..??
2) Use SETS MEDIA..??
3) use the assignment SLOT BOX..??

my objective is to create all the (physical or virtual servers):
 1) scheduling backup from MONDAY to THURSDAY differential.
 2) scheduling backup on Friday and Saturday totals.
 3) total backup to be stored outside library every Sunday of the month end.

I ask you to please your advice to professionals, if someone shows me step by step on how to make ... maybe with simple examples.
thank you very much, Tom.

[pkh]

Forget about partitions.  Just set up 3 media sets

1) Daily differentials 

2) Friday fulls

3) Sat fulls

You got to set up your OPP according to your data retention policy.  The OPP for the daily differentials could be as short as 6 days to re-use the tape.

For each physical server/VM host, create a backup job and you would get a full backup and and incremental backup.  Just change the job method of the incremental job to differential and then add another full backup job. Target your jobs to these media sets accordingly.

[Monster]

I use partitions in a customers tape library. He must archive his monthly backups, so I set up a partition in the library where the monthlies will be saved. So it's easier for my customer to replace the tapes, because he already knows in what slots they are.

[Tom83]

thank for all:

@Monster:
the robotic library has (2 magazine) so I had already thought of dividing:
-the first magazine for DIFFERENTIAL
-the second magazine for TOTAL

@pkh:
I thought of what you wrote, what do you advise me on how to set or configure the set:
1)How long to protect the data on the media from overwrite (OPP).
2)How long to append data to a media (AP).
for these 3 SET:
 1) the daily differential
 2) Friday fulls
 3) Sat fulls

and then associate the quantity of cartridge per individual in SET, or use another method ..
thank you very much, Tom

[Monster]

Hi Tom,

the downside of partitioning is that you have to keep track of the sizes. In my customer's case it's a good thing because else he had to check the tape numbers and might accidentally confuse them and archive the wrong tapes. With a partitioned library, he know what slots are the archive tapes.

The downside is, that now we have a fixed storage space size we either waste a lot of storage space, or we run short of it, which causes additional work.

@pkh:
I thought of what you wrote, what do you advise me on how to set or configure the set:
1)How long to protect the data on the media from overwrite (OPP).
2)How long to append data to a media (AP).
for these 3 SET:
 1) the daily differential
 2) Friday fulls
 3) Sat fulls

The question is, how long do you need to keep your data? If you need to restore data trom two weeks before, you either need to keep the weekly backups for weeks, oder additionally the incremental backups in between.

If you set the weekly backup write protection to 1 week (7 days), then you will have at least two weekly backups, because the write protection will be set upon completing the backup (in other words: a couple of hours AFTER the next backup job will start in that seven days).

[pkh]

For the fulls, I would not advise that you append to them so set the AP = 1 hr.  The OPP should be set according to your needs.  Nobody can advise you on this.  For example, if you want to keep the off-sire tapes (Sat full) for a long period like 1 year you got to set the OPP accordingly.

For the differential, you only need to keep them for a week, so you can set the OPP to 6 days.  If the differential is small and you want to append the tapes, then you got to set the AP to 6 days.  However, the OPP is calcuated from the time the last job write to the tape.  Hence you may need to reduce the OPP so that you can use the tape next week.  See this document

OPP and AP explanation

If you have set up your OPP and AP correctly, you do not need partitions.  I have never use partitions at all.

Associate your tapes with the scratch media set and let you jobs pick them up.  After they are written to, they would be associated with the media set targeted by your jobs.  If you associate them to the media sets, then the OPP and AP comes into effect immediately.

[Mr_B_]

Hi Tom,

Partitions are extremely helpful if you:

1 have to split backup jobs for different departments or customers.

2 have to split jobs with different retention periods.

About appending period: there is no point being longer than the period your tapes are extracted from the library and replaced with scratch media. If you do not have to change the tapes regularly (which means your whole backup fits on 30+ tapes), you have to pay more attention to AP and OPP.

Please note in Backup Exec 2012 when you try to restore a file from a differential (or incremental) backup it is presented as a FULL or TOTAL. In order for the restore to work, all tapes containing the last Total and differential (or all incrementals) have to be present in the library (In BE 2010 you could restore a single file from differential without presenting the last total)