"archive" level 0 backups

Hello list - thanks for your help in the past - I now have my amandaconfiguration running stably on a subset of my partitions with my 8-tapechanger for a few weeks without trouble. I've tested file recovery withamrecover and all is good.

I only have one last hurdle to overcome before I can declare completesuccess. One of the missions of our backups is to provide an archivalbackup for offsite storage at least once per month. I was hoping to getsome advice on this issue.

From the zmanda wiki I have gleaned that the typical way to do this iscreate an additional amanda configuration called "archive" that runsonce per month (or whatever) and forces a level 0 on all things you wantto archive.

This is fine, except that a full level 0 on all systems is going tocause some strain on the infrastructure (network and disk activity forexample). I was wondering if it is possible instead to cache the latestlevel0's from the daily backups and have them written to tape. Myholding disk is big enough to hold a copy of all level 0's, and it isnot necessary for my once-a-month backup to have level 0's all from thesame day. Since I am already paying the price to get a full set oflevel 0's once per week with my daily tape cycle, is it possible toleverage this into a easier monthly backup?

I hope this makes some sense to people and would really appreciate anyadvice on this issue.


Thanks in advance,
Don