GFS Help

[Jeffwmg]

I am setting up our backup system. I am running ARCserve backup Version 9.0 on a Windows 2000 server. I have the backup set now to back up everynight with me manually formating a tape nightly. I would like to set up a GFS rotation. I find that I am either missing something or I am very slow on picking this up. Could someone tell me Step-by-Step how to configure this or maybe there is a link to the instructions, I found the manual that CA set with the software lacked description. We have about 40GB worth of information, not all of which needs to be backup nightly. Would love for it to backup only files that have changed since the last backup. I think that a GFS rotation would do this for me.

Thanks,
-Jeff

 

[Cyklops]

Very short : GFS is an automatically handled rotation scheme for maintaining daily, weekly and monthly backups.
ARCserve will create 3 media pools: one for each rotation
(G-grandfather=montly/F-father=weekly/S=son=daily).
Each pool is divided into a safe and a scratch set.
Save = don't overwrite these tapes
Scratch = overwrite these tapes
The rules for switching from save to scratch can be set in the media pool manager for each pool that is created.
With GFS ARCserve takes over most of your tape administration so tape naming by the user is limited to assigning a 'media pool name prefix'.
The easiest way to have ARCserve handling GFS is to use 'blank media' (ie. erased tapes) to build up the rotation.
You can also check the following document :

http://support.ca.com/techbases/as61/TEC290252.html

(this is for Netware but the Windows version works pretty much the same.
GFS can work fine but by having ARCserve take over your tape administration it will require the user's discipline to have only tapes in the 'scratch set' (or blank media which will be excepted for EVERY backup job that is submitted) or the jobs will fail.

hope this clears things a little

regards