NetBackup & Data Retention on source host

[Luis-Miguel_Ast]

I was wondering if there is an option or module that allows following a retention policy to delete the data at source host and on tape.

Data lifecycle is one year for this particular issue and data should be deleted at both the source and at the tape library.

Your comments and questions are welcomed.

Luis

[Marianne]

I'm not sure if I understand "delete the data at source host" correctly?
If C:\ on host A is backed up with retention period of 1 month, what do you expect NetBackup to do after 1 month? "delete the data at source host"?

NetBackup does not delete actual data on source host or on tape. Expired image catalogs are deleted from master server image database, but actual data remains on tape. When all images on tape have expired, the tape is made available to be overwritten. Individual images on tape cannot be deleted - to do that the entire tape must be erased (quick or long erase) or re-labelled.

Backups written to disk are deleted when they expire.

[Luis-Miguel_Ast]

Thank you Marianne,

But there is no way for Netbackup with one of its policies or add-ons modules to be able to delete the data at the source? 

What I mean is I am backing up data from a file server, the lifecycle of that data is 1 year.  After one year, the data on the fileserver and backups tapes must be removed.

I was just wondering if NBU was able to delete the data at the fileserver and on tape (image catalog) at the same time with a retention policy instead of buying a 3rd party software to deploy on each server to clean the data individually.

Regards,

[Will_Restore]

The NetBackup administrator can allow users to back up, restore, or archive the

files from their computer. (An archive operation backs up a file, then deletes it

from the local disk if the backup is successful.)

But the data is deleted at the source right away, not based upon retention schedule.

[Luis-Miguel_Ast]

Thank you,so it seems that NBU won`t be able to answer my specs.

I really need the data to be accessible for only one year to users and applications then it needs to be deleted from the fileservers and on tape.

so no choice, up to a 3rd-party software to fill the gap.

Regards,

Luis

[Marianne]

Have a look at Symantec's Enterprise Vault. It can do filesystem as well as email archiving.

http://www.symantec.com/business/enterprise-vault

[Luis-Miguel_Ast]

Good morning Marianne,

I checked that product and EMC`s solution last year for a contract with a government agency but it was more for compliance and data retention/archives.

It does not answer my requirements and it would be an overkill as a solution. That`s why I was looking for something built-in or as an add-on to NBU.

Regards,

Luis

[Ed_Wilts]

This is a serious question - when you tell your application to delete a file, what do you really expect to happen?  Tapes are not random access and the NetBackup tape format won't let you delete a file out the middle of a tape.  There have been a few tape formats that emulated disk drives (Commodore cassette tapes, Epson HX20, etc.) but nothing I've seen recently.

You could delete a file entry from the catalog (although no supported native NetBackup tools currently allow this) but nothing would stop the administrator from re-importing the tape and getting it back.if the tape can be identified.

If you're dealing with individual files, deleting files from tape is going to be just about impossible.  If you're dealing with projects in neat directory trees, then create separate backup jobs for each of those directory trees and expire the images when the data retention period has expired for a particular project.

[Deepak_W]

NBU will never go and erase the tape after image expiration. It will simply remove respective entries. So that next time tape will be overwritten....

But prior to that if anyone manually imports the media into NBU then he/she can restore the data from that tape.

Also as mentioned tape is sequential media, so you cannot go and delete the file on the tape, you have to erase manually...

Even after doing all this thing NBU cannot go and delete the data from the source.... it is not in the code. Because NBU is meant for protecting the data.

For first problem you can go for some disk based backup solution where you can retain the data for longer time. This may solve your problem of removing the backup data after expiry.

But still you have to remove manually from source... probably use some script for removing data from source... but NBU will not help in removing source data...

hope this answers your queries...