Don't laugh... We currently save 180 Act / Deleted / Version Exists etc of our 
backup files (use to be 400).  Anyways in our Netbackup Env we do weekly fulls 
retained for 13months and an annual full with permanent retention.  I would 
like to get our TSM ennv closer to our Netbackup retention as we have 150+ GB 
TSM DB's.  Needless to say we could save on TSM DB and tape.  We aloe have a 
Company Retention policy in place that dictates specific retentions, which we 
accommodate with Archives.

Essentially we would like to retain a bit more than our Netbackup Env, because 
if you had recover a file more than a year old you could only get one version 
(Ie no point in time).  Is there a good middle of the road basic retention?  I 
have searched adsm etc but haven't really found anything. We know 180 visions 
is insane... but 5 version would be little too loose.

Thank you again, this is the best Tech List in existence!!!!


Found a great Tivoli Field guide called "Tivoli Field Guide - Full-Incremental 
Rotations Using IBM Tivoli Storage Manager" 
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/sysmgmt/products/support/Field_Guides_Technical.html

Here are some examples in the field guide....

Example 1 --- 5-Week Full-Incremental Rotation 
In this case, the policy we are trying to implement in Storage Manager is one 
of doing a full once a week and incremental on the other days. After 4 weeks 
and 6 days, the administrator will reuse the tape on which he did his first 
full backup. 
Translating this rotation to Storage Manager is pretty straightforward. A 
management class can be defined with the following parameters: 
Versions Data Exists: Nolimit 
Versions Data Deleted: Nolimit 
Retain Extra Versions: 34 
Retain Only Version: 34 
These settings would ensure that inactive (old) versions of files are kept for 
34 days before they are discarded by the Storage Manager Server. 

Example 2 --- 5-Week Full-Incremental Rotation with Extra Weekly Full Taken 
Off-Site 
In this case, the desired policy to be implemented in Storage Manager is one of 
doing a full twice a week and incremental on six days. One full is taken 
off-site for disaster recovery purposes. This means that after 4 weeks and 6 
days, the administrator will reuse the tape on which he or she did his first 
full backup. And after the same amount of time, he or she will recycle the 
oldest off-site full. 
Translating this rotation to Storage Manager is pretty straightforward. A 
management class can be defined with the following parameters: 
Versions Data Exists: Nolimit 
Versions Data Deleted: Nolimit 6
Retain Extra Versions: 34 
Retain Only Version: 34 
These settings would ensure that inactive (old) versions of files are kept for 
34 days before they are discarded by the Storage Manager Server. The off-site 
requirements are handled with a copy storage pool and the Storage Manager 
Disaster Recovery Manager. A copy storage pool will allow for an exact copy of 
the on-site data to be taken off-site on a regular basis. There is no need to 
do additional backups to get this off-site copy. 
Example 3 --- 2-Week Full-Incremental Rotation Kept On-Site 
5-Weekly Fulls Kept both On-Site and Off-Site 
Here, the administrator is essentially using two different rotational schemes. 
The two week on-site rotation will be the one that is primarily used for 
recovery. As some extra "insurance", the policy calls for weekly fulls. They 
would be used in the event the administrator needs to recover something older 
than two weeks and in the event of a disaster recovery scenario. 
The implementation of this policy in Storage Manager requires two management 
classes. The first is used to accommodate the two week rotation and the second 
is used to accommodate the 5 week rotation. The management classes have the 
following parameters set: 
Two Week Class - NODE1 Five Week Class - NODE2 
Versions Data Exists: Nolimit Versions Data Exists: Nolimit 
Versions Data Deleted: Nolimit Versions Data Deleted: Nolimit 
Retain Extra Versions: 13 Retain Extra Versions: 34 
Retain Only Version: 13 Retain Only Version: 34 
Two separate Storage Manager virtual nodes are established that map to each of 
the classes, although each of these Storage Manager nodes corresponds to the 
same physical machine. Node1 runs its backup on a daily basis to the Two Week 
Class. Node2 only runs its backup on a weekly basis and sends it to a different 
storage pool than Node1. A copy storage pool is then created for the node using 
the five week class and the Disaster Recover Manager is used to manage the 
off-site data.