Backups And Rotation Types - HP BB118BV - StorageWorks Data Protector Express Package Addendum

Backups and Rotation Types

Backups and Rotation Types
One benefit of using Data Protector Express with tape libraries is the ease with which you
can schedule different backups for different days of the week/month/year. Use the
appropriate backup wizard to create your backup job, as described earlier in the User
Guide.
When you get to the Schedule Job step, select a Schedule type of Run repeatedly. You
are then able to select a Rotation type and set up run parameters. Alternatively, edit the
Schedule page of a job's Properties.
The selected rotation type depends on your business requirements for retaining data. A
popular choice is the GFS type (Grandfather-Father-Son), which allows you to set up a
rotating schedule with different retention policies for daily, weekly, monthly and annual
backups.
This is a standard rotation and not unique to Data Protector Express. GFS-30 requires 30
media sets. Note that a set may actually equate to one or more physical cartridges—if it is
necessary to span cartridges during a backup session, Data Protector Express does this
automatically.
Look at Interval Settings. This rotation type makes 12 sets available for daily backups, 8
sets for weekly backup, 8 sets for monthly backup and 2 sets for yearly backup. What this
means is that daily backup cartridges are effectively retained for two weeks before they
are overwritten; weekly backups are retained for 2 months before they are overwritten,
and so on. Simply click the cursor in a date in the calendar; information about the set to
which it belongs is shown in the information text below the calendar. Daily backups
always default to incremental; weekly, monthly and yearly default to full, (regardless of
any settings you made to the Backup and Write modes in the Job Options step of the
wizard).
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