To Duplicate via Vault or Staging Schedule

[Dion]

Hi

I know there have been similar question asked before regarding duplicating images via a Staging Schedule (using a SU as a Temporary Staging Area) and being able to clear space of duplicated images when requred.

I have no problem with this but would like to know how you would use the disk Staging Schedule in conjunction with Vault duplication.

If you enable a storage unit as a Temporary Staging Area you have to set up a Staging Schedule which implies that you must use this mechanism to duplicate your images negating the use of Vault duplication.  This in fact gives you a fairly decent scenario whereby already-duplicated images become eligible for expiry either when either they expire or when disk space is needed by a new backup.  The issue with this method is that you cannot co-ordinate duplication/relocation, catalog backups and tape eject jobs neatly.

If you are using Vault, however, you have the option of duplicating images and then expiring the original image based on hours after a successful duplication - this works on a standard or temporary staging disk storage unit.  This option has the added benifit that a single vault job can run your duplication, catalog and tape ejection jobs in a sequence quite neatly.  The problem with this is that you have to set up a specific time in hours which is not flexible as this does not use high and low watermark settings.

Any ideas of adapting both methods to get the best of both worlds? - Having a co-ordinated backup-duplication-catalog-eject methodology that will keep already-duplicated images on disk as long as possible and will clean up as needed.

Thanks in advanced

[Omar_Villa]

The answer to this mix is Storage Lifecycle Policy only under NBU 6.5, where u can run multiple copies and/or duplicated images and control your expiration dates from one single point, is realy cool, try reading this white paper:

http://ftp.support.veritas.com/pub/support/products/NetBackup_Enterprise_Server/290226.pdf

regards

[Dion]

Thanks Omar

I have already put in a request for the Advanced Disk Option licence but, alas, I have to wait till the next financial year for this one.  Was hoping there was a more consistent way of handling this in the meantime.

The other option I was thinking of was to enable the disk as a Temporary Storage Unit only and then use the Staging Schedule to duplicate the disk images using multiple copies - one to Onsite and the other to Offsite tapes.

Anyone had any experience with using this storage unit's Staging Schedule - could I schedule this, for example, to kick off every 4 hours?  What implications would this have in the following situations...

1. Production backups are currently running.  Some backups would be complete while others will be in progress or queued.  Would the staging schedule only select completed jobs?

2. What would happen if the previous staging schedule was still running, would the second one queue correctly and would there be confusion regarding the selection of images for duplication between the incompleted staging schedule and the newly started one?

Thanks again.