Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] Backup Audit script...

2005-03-30 11:37:26
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Backup Audit script...
From: randy.k.zimmer AT monsanto DOT com (ZIMMER, RANDY K [AG/1000])
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:37:26 -0600
In our SAP environment our Basis people do a periodic datafile restore after a 
hot backup and on a quarterly basis they do a restore validate (read the backup 
tape).  That's something.

Randy Zimmer
Unix System Administrator
Monsanto Enterprise Infrastructure Team
Office:  314-694-3109
Pager:  314-294-7966
rkzimm AT monsanto DOT com

-----Original Message-----
From: Ungaro, Matt [mailto:mjungaro AT capitolindemnity DOT com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 10:10 AM
To: Paul Keating; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Backup Audit script...

Paul,
        Even that's not enough. Sadly. The best test of completeness of
backups is to perform recovery on randomized sets of Data. Then keep that in
a log when you do it. That's really the only way to fully test the validity
of backups. Sure, you could have 20GB of data on a system, and Netbackup can
show that it backed up 20GB. The problem is, is the 20GB usable? You will
never know that until your perform test restores. As part of our new
procedures, we keep a log of all restores that occur, because every
successful restore shows that you successfully backed something up. But then
we go beyond that and on a quarterly basis attempt to do a full system
restore from a randomly picked set of backups. It's a total pain, but it's
really the only way to find out if your backups are usable.

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Paul 
Keating
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 09:55
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Backup Audit script...


Also, knowing what volumes and paths were selected, when the backup ran, and
what it's end status was, doesn't gaurantee you've got the data on tape.....
as I recently found out.

Looks now like I will have to implement something that runs on the client
side, to determine the amount of data on EVERY machine, pass that to a
central location, then compare to the amount of data netbackup captured, and
provide an explanation for the differences!!

Paul

> I would hope that you
> have some way of telling your customer that the backups really did run 
> though.  After all, you could disable the policy next week, leave it 
> disabled for the next 5 months, turn it back on and show the customer 
> the policy again and tell him that everything's all right.
> 
> bppllist is a goal, not an audit tool.

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