On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 at 3:06pm, Edson Noboru Yamada wrote

> I´m a Veritas Netbackup admin, and I´m trying to test Amanda
> as an alternative.
> 
> With Netbackup, it´s possible to define a backup image retention time, that 
> is the number of days that an a given image must be preserved on a tape; a 
> tape
> is only reused if all the backup images it contains are expired.
> 
> Is there a way to define something similar with amanda?

That's done through a combo of dumpcycle and tapecycle:

dumpcycle = max amount of time between full backups of a DLE (disk list 
            entry)
runspercycle = number of times you'll run 'amdump' per dumpcycle
tapecycle = how many tapes you will let amanda use

So it seems that 'dumpcycle' is closest to what you're used to, although 
tapecycle comes into play as well.  It's generally recommended to have 
tapecycle be at least 1.5 * runspercycle, as amanda *will* overwrite a 
tape with active images on it (but it will complain loudly about doing 
so).

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University