Bob - thanks for that; that's a pretty comprehensive answer to my
questions).

Another question is if you backup A_L_D, which implies SYSTEM_STATE (or
SHADOW_COPY for Win2k3), if I was to exclude the DHCP db directories,
would the policy still get the DHCP backups from S_S (even if S_S is
implied in A_L_D, is it actually a separate backup to actual file system
backups)? If that was the case then everything that gets backed up be
S_S could be excluded from A_L_D.

Cheers,

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: bob944 [mailto:bob944 at attglobal.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, 21 June 2006 10:39 PM
To: veritas-bu at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
Cc: Wilkinson, Tim
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] NBU 6, Windows, excluding files

> We are backing up some databases (SQL and SharePoint) and using agents

> to backup the actual dbs and also backing up the entire systems using 
> ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES.
> The A_L_D backup jobs meet a few open db files and can't back them up 
> (which is expected) and I'm wondering whether I can exclude the 
> directories where the dbs are stored from the policy (which is backing

> up A_L_D) and not affect the agent backups.
> My guess this is as simply achieved by specifying which policy to 
> exclude from but just want to confirm that this won't affect the agent
> (db) backups.

No need to make them policy[.sched]-specific; excluding files from a
filesystem backup has no effect on an agent backup which backs up the
data logically:  an exclude_list with /oradata/*dbf won't interfere with
the Oracle agent's RMAN backup of the data in those .dbf files.  Be
clear whether (in this example) the dbf files will not be backed up in
any filesystem backups or have a specific *clude_list arrangement for,
say, the prod-ora-cold filesystem backup.  

Exclude directories only if a) they include sufficient other
useless-to-back-up objects that specifying them is irksome, b) there is
formal agreement that nothing in that directory or its subdirectories
will be backed up and c) the data owner has demonstrated that he can
recover that application without need of the excluded structure.  (I
never trust the DBAs on this.  When you have to recover that critical
database/application to new hardware after a disaster and the DBA finds
that he really did need setup or control files that he guaranteed you
didn't need to back up, it doesn't matter that the error was
demonstrably his if the company is out of business because the database
is kaput.)

> What files/folders (on Windows) do people often exclude?

>From memory:

Any *.mdb, *.ldb, *.edb, ... that are backed up by another means or are
not necessary to preserve across rebuilds.

All of the perf*.dat stuff.

And the default excludes mentioned in the SAG, of course (and ensure the
system owner knows this).

Rule:  force backup-and-restore operations to investigate every status
1, every single time, determine the files not backed up, go to the
data/system owner for approval to exclude or ignore, document the
process to all.  The annoyance to all concerned usually results in
quickly cleaning up all the stat 1 problems.