On Wed, Apr 16, 2003 at 09:05:03AM -0500, Matthew Goade wrote:
> Hello,
> I will be backing up:
> AIX 4.2.1.x
> Red Hat file server
> Sun Cobalt RaQ 550
> Red Hat the backup server
> Suse print server
> Win NT 4 (either via Samba or compiling Amanda in cygwin, whatever works)
> 2 Win2K Pros.
> 
> I have 8 AIT 25/50GB Tapes, and two 35/91GB tapes.
> 
> I would immensely appreciate advice on configuring the dumpcycle,
> runspercycle and tapecycle.
> 
> Here's what I would do without any advise:
> AIX, NT and 2kpros have existing backups via different methods. I just want
> a second backup. I'll use the 2 big tapes like this:
> index yes
> record no
> dumpcycle 0
> 
> once a week(or month) on those.

If the data from all 8 systems fit into about 70GB, you could do
these, as you suggest, as full backups.  You would always have two
until you start to overwrite the older one.  Set tapecycle 2 and
a different config from the dailies.  If you need 2 tapes to hold
the total data, set runtapes 2 and be aware you destroy your only
backup when you start a new one.  (or get more tapes)

> 
> But for the others, how should I set up the cycle with 8 tapes? They will
> only be changed 5 days a week.

Set your dumpcycle to 7 days and runspercycle to 5.  I'm assuming a level 0
dump once a week of each DLE will be sufficient for your needs.  That should
handle perhaps 200GB of data spread out over 5 tapes.  The last 5 of your
8 tapes will always be the most recent backups.  Your tapes won't match up
1=monday, 2=tuesday, ... but you shouldn't rely on that anyway.  You will
not be able to get stuff from 2 or 3 weeks ago, but the last 1.5 weeks will
be available.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
 4455 Province Line Road        (609) 252-0159
 Princeton, NJ  08540-4322      (609) 683-7220 (fax)