Question on backup data classification

[Anton_Panyushki]

Hello,

I have political and methodological question rather than technical one. We have got quite a big NetBackup enviromnemt. A Netbackup environment assessment processed by Symantec staff advises as to divide all the data that should be backed up into several classes with certain RPO and RTO. I'd like to know if this approach is widely accepted and recognized or it is cutting edge know-how. In other words I want to know how mature this method is. If you company implements this or similar opproach I 'd like to know how good it is.

Thank you. 

Message Edited by Anton Panyushkin on 04-17-200701:52 AM

Message Edited by Anton Panyushkin on 04-17-200701:54 AM

[Stumpr2]

Please pardon my ignorance, but what are RPO and RTO?

[Darren_Dunham]

RTO - Recovery Time Objective.  How long does it take to get the data back?  You might have archives that you can wait a week for transportation and recovery.  Your corporate database might require a maximum of 2 hours.

RPO - Recovery Point Objective.  How close do you have to get to what you want?  For old data, we might only be able to recover to a nearby weekly or monthly full.  We've decided that other data is mostly redundant.  Again, for critical databases, we might decide that losing more than 2 hours of data isn't acceptable, so we'll be doing backups more often.

Most small to medium sites have a small number of machines/services with low RTO/RPO and no need to examine the differences in great detail.
--
Darren

[Stumpr2]

Thanks Darren!

Anton,

RPO and RTO have been in existence longer than Netbackup itself. These old concepts just have new names. Yes, policies should take this into consideration and you could/maybe should, group them accordingly with similiar clients.

[Anton_Panyushki]

Veritas recommendations sound reasonable to me, but what I want to know is if your company practises this approach and potential benefits and drawbacks of this technique. I'd like somebody to share you expirience on this matter.  Maybe there is some Veritas white paper concerning data classification based on RPO/RTO .

Message Edited by Anton Panyushkin on 04-17-200711:10 PM