Tim
In case Bob does not answer, I will say "Yes"; although happy to be told
"no" if I am wrong, but this sounds correct to me :-)

Regards

Simon Weaver
3rd Line Technical Support
Windows Domain Administrator 

EADS Astrium Limited, B32AA IM (DCS)
Anchorage Road, Portsmouth, PO3 5PU

Email: Simon.Weaver at Astrium-eads.net



-----Original Message-----
From: Wilkinson, Tim [mailto:Tim.Wilkinson at dsto.defence.gov.au] 
Sent: 22 June 2006 00:54
To: bob944 at attglobal.net; veritas-bu at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] NBU 6, Windows, excluding files


Bob - thanks for that; that's a pretty comprehensive answer to my
questions).

Another question is if you backup A_L_D, which implies SYSTEM_STATE (or
SHADOW_COPY for Win2k3), if I was to exclude the DHCP db directories, would
the policy still get the DHCP backups from S_S (even if S_S is implied in
A_L_D, is it actually a separate backup to actual file system backups)? If
that was the case then everything that gets backed up be S_S could be
excluded from A_L_D.

Cheers,

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: bob944 [mailto:bob944 at attglobal.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, 21 June 2006 10:39 PM
To: veritas-bu at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
Cc: Wilkinson, Tim
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] NBU 6, Windows, excluding files

> We are backing up some databases (SQL and SharePoint) and using agents

> to backup the actual dbs and also backing up the entire systems using
> ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES.
> The A_L_D backup jobs meet a few open db files and can't back them up 
> (which is expected) and I'm wondering whether I can exclude the 
> directories where the dbs are stored from the policy (which is backing

> up A_L_D) and not affect the agent backups.
> My guess this is as simply achieved by specifying which policy to
> exclude from but just want to confirm that this won't affect the agent
> (db) backups.

No need to make them policy[.sched]-specific; excluding files from a
filesystem backup has no effect on an agent backup which backs up the data
logically:  an exclude_list with /oradata/*dbf won't interfere with the
Oracle agent's RMAN backup of the data in those .dbf files.  Be clear
whether (in this example) the dbf files will not be backed up in any
filesystem backups or have a specific *clude_list arrangement for, say, the
prod-ora-cold filesystem backup.  

Exclude directories only if a) they include sufficient other
useless-to-back-up objects that specifying them is irksome, b) there is
formal agreement that nothing in that directory or its subdirectories will
be backed up and c) the data owner has demonstrated that he can recover that
application without need of the excluded structure.  (I never trust the DBAs
on this.  When you have to recover that critical database/application to new
hardware after a disaster and the DBA finds that he really did need setup or
control files that he guaranteed you didn't need to back up, it doesn't
matter that the error was demonstrably his if the company is out of business
because the database is kaput.)

> What files/folders (on Windows) do people often exclude?

>From memory:

Any *.mdb, *.ldb, *.edb, ... that are backed up by another means or are not
necessary to preserve across rebuilds.

All of the perf*.dat stuff.

And the default excludes mentioned in the SAG, of course (and ensure the
system owner knows this).

Rule:  force backup-and-restore operations to investigate every status 1,
every single time, determine the files not backed up, go to the data/system
owner for approval to exclude or ignore, document the process to all.  The
annoyance to all concerned usually results in quickly cleaning up all the
stat 1 problems.



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