Re: Backup strategy for Lotus Domino

Hi Nicholas,

It depends on the requirement.  Is it to be able to reproduce a database at
any point in the last five years, or to be able to produce a point-in-time
copy at some point near to the desired time?  If its "near to" they want,
what is the granularity needed?

To be able to do the point in time you will need to keep all of the weekly
backps and all of the incremetals and all of the transaction logs.  Thats
190GB * 52 * 5 = 50 TB in weeklies alone, let alone all the rest and with no
allowance for growth.  The alternative is to run a separate periodic cycle
(possibly monthly or bi-monthly).  This could be to another TSM node as a
domino backup with all the extra baggage that entails, or it could be an
archive of the domino data from the OS client - this has implications for
open files and may require you to shut down domino while the backup happens
to ensure a clean one - however it is more flexible in that you could keep,
say, weekly backups for six months and the first one of every month for the
full five years or some similar scheme.

Realistically though I doubt that you will ever do a restore.  This sounds
like either a dumb legal requirement or someone intent on *ss-covering
without thought to cost or practicality.  Cost it in full, don't skimp or
economise in your calculations, and don't forget the administrative
overhead, then let management decide if it is worth it to them. Oh, and
build in some fat so that when they come back and ask you to reconsider
because its too expensive, you can give them a 10% reduction fairly easily.

Regards

Steve.

Steve Harris
AIX and TSM Admin.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicolas Savva" <NSavva AT LAIKI DOT COM>
To: <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 6:54 PM
Subject: [ADSM-L] Backup strategy for Lotus Domino

Hi to all

I am using TDP for Lotus Notes 5.1.5 for backing up Lotus Domino (size
190GB) onto 3590 cartridges. I use the following backup strategy:

Lotus Domino is using Archive Logging.

  Perform weekly selective backups (size 190GB) of all logged databases,
  every Saturday
  Archive the transanction log frequently each day (every 4 hours)
  Run incremental backups every night to backup logged databases that
  their DBIID has changed
  Run the inactivatelogs command in order to expire non-essential
  transaction log files. I am running this command after the full backup.

How can i setup the backup copy group in order to be able to restore a
database 5 years old (keep backups for 5 years)?


Thanks in advance

Nicolas Savva