Just to chime in on the Aptare reports...

They have an automated report ("out of the box", but not really) you can
cron/windows schedule to run that will give you the following details on
full backups...
(hope your screens large enough to make out the headings...).   Great
way to stop sys admins bugging you about last successful backups.



                                                       LATEST FULL
BACKUP     LAST 60 DAYS
CLIENT                             SERVER              LAST FULL
MBYTES       FILES  AVG MBYTES   AVG FILES
------                             ------              ---------
------       -----  ----------   ---------



With a little fiddling, you can get something that looks like the
following all in one email...

1) Missing Backups (from last window any scheduled backup that has yet
to run or has failed)
2) Last successful full backup attempt
3) Any skipped files during last backup

Get the right person on a DL for an email, and you're laughing.

Cheers,
Jon



-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Wayne T
Smith
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 12:29 PM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] retentions

I, too, agree the 2-week retention should be addressed ... quite risky. 

A few thoughts ...

I recently tested Aptare StorageConsole and one of its out-of-the-box
displays is close what you're looking for, I think.  When we obtain a
license, I'll be discarding many scripts ... one of which sort of
applies here.  The script  looks at all full images for all clients and
reports the most recent full backup for each client, ordered by oldest
first.  Look at the top of the list for clients in distress.

This is simple and works great for clients with one image holding
everything.  It isn't nearly good enough for clients using multiple
streams or clients that also have Exchange/Oracle/etc images in addition
to file system images.  I've started more than once to approximate
"proof" we are successfully backing up at least what we intend.  So far
I have a bunch of failed attempts that would have worked for simple
cases, but failed miserably in multitudes of ways.

The best answer for us has always seemed to be getting accurate,
succinct information in front of the eyes of someone who understands it
and cares.  But even that is not enough sometimes.  Your idea of keeping
the last full has promise, but you'll need a process to get rid of the
images once you really don't want them ... plus, if your data is on
tape, you'll probably require more media, as tape occupancy goes down
due to the retention-extended images living alone.

cheers, wayne

Brandon Zermeno wrote, in part,  on 2007-07-19 6:50 PM:
>
> We had an issue where was server was down for over 2 weeks and the 
> last full backups expired. The retention for this environment is 2 
> weeks. After the tapes expired the App team decided they wanted to 
> restore. Now management wants Veritas to extend the retention period 
> automatically if a full is not successfully run. I do not know of any 
> company that has this capability so I am looking for ideas. I do not 
> think it would be possible for a person to manually track all the 
> servers and their last full and then manually bpexpdate the images. I 
> have pushed back with the question of why was this server allowed to 
> be down for 2 weeks but nobody is answering.
>
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