>       Not trying to start a flame but is it really worthwhile excluding
> (e.g. core files) in terms of:
> 
> a)    The admin time to choose which files to exclude
> b)    Setting up the e/list
> c)    Publishing the list as suggested
> d)    Maintaining ditto
> 
> Compared with not being able to restore files ('cos they weren't backed
> up!)? In other words, what fraction of total tape use is saved by doing
> things like this? Or, put another way: how many admin hours (i.e. $$) is a
> chunk of tape worth?

I don't do the above to save tape.  I do it to stay on top of backups.  

I've been lots of places where most of the backups are status=1, and
there's 50 to 100 lines of "file open", or "file changed" messages.
That means that it becomes "normal", so they're not investigated.  One
day a new file show up on that list and no one notices.  Then when one
of them can't be restored, folks get mad.  (controller had one of the
financial records in Filemaker Pro database, always left it open.  Sure
enough, the logs said the file wasn't being backed up, but noone that
noticed thought that was critical).

The exclude lists mean that any status=1 backup is an exception, not a
rule to be ignored.  Any file that doesn't complete can be investigated,
not lost in the noise.  

This is especially true with reporting tools where only status 0 shows
up as "green" on the executive summary.  "Why are all these red?" "Well,
they're not *really* bad, they're just status 1 backups...."

I wouldn't bother just to save the tape space of a few excluded files.
I do do it to save the tape space of lots of included files (say build
directories on a development server).  



-- 
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham AT taos DOT com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
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