Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] Status 1's and exclude lists (was Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU)

2008-04-14 19:24:16
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Status 1's and exclude lists (was Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU)
From: "Stuart Liddle" <stuart.liddle AT glasshouse DOT com>
To: <VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:13:08 -0400

 

 

I think that Jeff has the right idea here.  Building an exclude list for things that cause a status 1 can be very helpful to you if you are in a S-OX environment. 

 

I guess I’d have to modify my “review it once and ignore them after that…” position.  If you review the status 1’s on a regular basis and check with the application owners to ensure that the files are NOT critical to a restore of the application (like some error log files or such) and place these files into the exclude list, then you are covered.  This will switch the system getting status 1’s to status zero.  That way IF things change (like someone adding a new application or the application starts to behave differently, you will notice it because you start seeing status 1’s.

 

Definitely agree with having an exclude list for the database stuff if you are handling the database backups separately as a special form of backup.

 

-stuart


From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Jeff Lightner
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:13 AM
To: Weber, Philip; VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU

 

I’ll have to disagree with the idea of not using exclude lists.   A couple of reasons to use them:

1)       Separate OS and application/database backups.   You do not want to have a policy that backs up from / on a system that has GBs or TBs of database on it when you have a separate policy for the database backups.  In multi-tier environments it is even more important that you backup the DB from one server along with middle tier or other levels from other servers as part of an “environment” backup rather than a “server” backup.  

2)       Not having excluded the known items that can’t be backed up (e.g. /proc on Linux, door files on Solaris) you have no idea whether the status 1 you just got was only for those known items or for other items that WERE critical to you ability to recover.   In at least one Federally regulated industry I was expected to explain every file that caused a status 1.  If I did that in the official backup documentation (required by those same regulations) I could put it in the exclude lists and NOT have to explain it each day.   For those of us that know and love S-OX this might be a good pre-emptive measure for overzealous S-OX audits.

 

----------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>