ADSM-L

Re: Q's about weekly, monthly, yearly backups.

2015-10-04 18:13:27
Subject: Re: Q's about weekly, monthly, yearly backups.
From: Jerry Lawson at TISDMAIL
From: INTERNET.OWNERAD at SNADGATE
To: higmx.oas at SNADGATE
To: Jerry Lawson at TISDMAIL
Date: 9/4/96 12:58PM
Date: 9/4/96 11:36AM
You had two interesting twists to the earlier post.....

> I'm doing backups of multiple Oracle servers which are part of an SAP
system.

Data base backups are indeed a problem for a couple of reasons - you mentioned
one (the DB has to be down) - the other is that there is no way to tell if the
data within the DB has actually changed, and so you must back it all up again.
 For a serious DB system (not just Oracle, but also Sybase or DB2 or .......)
I would look at the tools available to do incremental backups of only the
changed data.  DB2 has this available, Oracle and Sybase have the SQL
Backtrack products, and Oracle has some of their own products as well.  (There
are undoubtedly others that I am missing.  Most of these do, however, get to
the point where a regular backup of the DB (a full backup, if you will) is a
good idea.  There are a couple of ways to do this, either by setting up differ
ent schedules, or by running two separate clients on the same machine.

> This is great if I want the latest copy, but what if I want one from a
> month ago when I know that virus wasn't a problem (or when that important
> spreadsheet wasn't corrupted)? Or if I need a full system image from
> January 1, 1994 for that tax audit?

These are some very valid situationsthat need to be considered.  I would
suggest a couple of things.  First for the Virus example, consider what a
reasonable time to go back is.  Is it a month?  How many changes are reasonabl
e to expect for those files?  Take the information from this, and use it to
build your Policy domain from.  I do this with each area that I am bringing on
board ADSM - let them establish their requirements, but of course temper it
with the reality that they are paying for the resources consumed.  We have
people that have done this and said - you know, we never have had to go back
more than the last copy from our old backups, etc.  What would the impact be
if you had to go back to a tape that was a year old?  If you did keep weekly a
nd monthly tapes, what would your retention have been?

As you can see there are a lot of questions to answer before you get to the
"ideal" policy domain.  One thing to consider - a large machine (such as a
server) may not have a "perfect" answer.  For example - we have a server that
contains some security records that are updated daily, and our audit
department requires that we keep for 90 days - all copies.  So an ideal Policy
would include something like 65 copies, and a retention of 90 days.  But this
is a regular Network server (happens to be Novell) with all the junk that goes
along with that.  We don't want to keep that kind of stuff (user files, WP
docs, etc.) for that many copies.  So we set up two management classes within
the domain.  The default (which happens to be 3 copies, and 35 days) applies
to everything, except the security files.  The security directory is handled
with the special management class.  This is done through an Include statement
in the DSM.OPT that contains the name of the "special security" management
 class.

Then there's your tax audit records.  What you have here is not a backup
problem, but an application for the Archive function of ADSM.  If you need to
have these record kept for 7 years, set up an appropriate archive class, and
then use that function.  It is independent of the backup process; as a matter
of fact, you could even delete the files after they are archived, and while
the backup would go away (subject to the "only copy" rules you have
established) the archive will be kept until the expiration date is reached.

If you want to call me an talk about this further, or send me a direct e-mail,
please feel free to.

Jerry Lawson
jlawson AT itthartford DOT com
(860) 547-2960