Whether synthetic backup fit my requirement

[Edwork]

I have a windows 2003 server with large size 10 TB, around 8 drives.

Requirement:

1. I want to backup using MS-Windows.

2. Full backup monthly.

Target devices:

1. Currently Tape

2. Plan to change Simple disk storage

Backup Purpose:

1. Keep 12 copies of bakup (monthly)

2. retention period: 1 years.

Problems face:

1. It will have 12x10 TB data on tapes now. It have a lot of tapes.

2. Backup time duration is very long.

3. No duplication option on my Netbackup server 7.

Questions:

If I change to simple disk storage and use Synthetic backup ( Enable Collect True Image Restore Information With Move Detection option )

1. Would I save time and disk space for backup such server ?

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO33782#id-SF780173656

2. Would I still keep only backup policy type use "Full backup" on Type on Policy > Schedule ?

[Mark_Solutions]

Hi

That is quite a large one for Synthetics but it should work as long as your Media Server has the processing power.

You will need at least 3 x the disk capacity of the server (counting a single full and its incremental backups)

For Synthetic you need to use both full and incremental / differential backups as it is these that are used on the Media Server to create the Synthetic Full

In effect you would do the following:

Monthly "real" full to disk staging area (so that it is duplicated to tape)

Daily incremental to disk staging (also duplicated to tape preferably)

Weekly Synthetic Full to disk staging (Full backup with the synthetic box checked)

You need enough disk space to ensure that the Monthly full and all diffrential / incremental backups are still on disk and enough space left to produce another Full backup on disk (the synthetic) without it going near your high water mark.

What you dont want is for it to have been removed from disk and so require last weeks tapes.

With everything being processed on disk it should cope and once this synthetic full has been created it will get duplicated to tape.

Although the document you point to indicates an "Incremental forever" scenario I believe that there wasa reccomendation that a "real" backup should be performed monthly, although i do have a customer that does this only annually.

Also ensure that all timeouts are set high enough (Clienta nd Media Server client read timeouts) as the TIR information will take some time to gather on a client of this size and also consume a lot of disk space so you may need to install the NetBackup client on a drive with reasonable disk space

Hope this helps

[Yogesh9881]

Need to know few more about this ...

How many server (host) you are talking about ??

What data ? database or file level ? what is total data size ??

LTO5 or LTO4 ?

What is connectivity for backup infra. FC or LAN ??

[Edwork]

thank you for both comment in that technique.

I have a single server with that size 8 TB, server is a general file server. Tape is using LTO3. Plan to retrieve tape library. Tape library thru network backup data on same LAN.

Is it necessary backup data on disk staging ? If I use basic disk as backup target, would disk staging is required ?

If you have any more effective way to handle disk space consumption within Netbackup 7 ?

[Mark_Solutions]

Edwork The reason for disk is the speed of the process If using basic disk you could only retain the backups according to the space you have So you would need enough to do a full backup, the incrementals and the synthetic, after that if you were out of space your retention would require the first full to expire before the next one ran You can use tape but obviously would need at least two drives and to keep all tapes in the library (at least the last full and subsequent incrementals) This tends to go against keeping your tapes off site for data protection Disk staging at least allows the space to be capacity managed and gives you an off site tape copy

[Edwork]

Clean up properties for TIR: (on Admin Guide)

For traditional backup need 30 days retention period. (Sunday - Full, Mon - Sat - Inc,) How many days true image keep ? I think it keeps 30 days, is it correct ?

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

The TIR information is written as part of the image but the setting generally used in the host properties is according to you requirements So if doing full backups weekly then 8 days would be OK but most people set this to 30 days or so

[Edwork]

If my Netbackup farm with server A with 12 copies month-end backup, retention 1 year.

and rest of servers with 4 weekly full backup and daily inc, retension 30 days. would we use 8 days for TIR clean up to handle both request.

I expect retention period could protection server A full image even longer than 30 days.

[Mark_Solutions]

The aim of TIR is to have a map of the server at.the time of the last backup which is why it takes this for every backup whether full or incremental

[Edwork]

Thank Mark_Solution Explantation ! I will do some test on my farm.