On May 21, 2011, at 6:32 AM, Mehdi Salehi wrote:
> One of our clients uses Acronis for Windows bare/metal. Although we have
> implemented TSM over there, they are sticking to their old solution and
> ridiculously send the output of Acronis (which are large images) to TSM.
> They deny the snapshot image of B/A client and even Fastback orCristie!!!!
> Sometimes it is too difficult or impossible to convince people to the
> "right" direction.
This is why I like charge-back schemes. :-)
The basic risks are these:
If I back up too much, I pay extra for my backup storage.
If I back up too little, my restores may fail.
If I keep too many copies, I pay extra for my backup storage.
If I keep too few copies, my users may not be able to find what they need to
restore.
If I retain replaced or deleted files too long, I increase my storage needs
wastefully.
If I retain replaced or deleted files for too short a time, my users may not be
able to find what they need.
If my clients use in appropriate options, such as compressing data before
sending it to a deduplicating storage hierarchy, we increase our storage needs
unnecessarily.
Charge-back gives my users more incentive to tune their backup configurations,
including the backup retention policies applied. If we charge them extra for
when they dump data on us without thinking, such as doing full selective
backups every time it starts to rain, they learn what their actions cost. We
let them decide which of their actions are worth the cost, to them, and we
follow through by making them absorb those costs. That usually breaks users of
backing up .iso images and Acronis backup images just because they can!
We all get to balance between two risks: pay more than we should, because we
back up -- or retain -- more than we should, or back up too little, because our
charge-back scheme or other policies implore us to cut back excessively.
If you can't get your users to care about retention policies and charge-back
schemes, then I try to defer to the people who set policy and pay the budgets.
Let managers and corporate counsel set the retention policies by default, and
hope that they understand the trade-offs.
We, of course, are the ones who could set the policies, the ones who have to by
default. But this doesn't mean we should, only that we can.
Just a thought,
Nick
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