GFS Tape rotation question

[TechLad]

Hi all,

I'm getting myself confused over the GFS tape rotation.

As a company we have committed to have that last 5 days, the last 5 weeks and 2 years worth of monthlies.

We have daily tapes (1-5), weekly (1-5) and the monthlies

This is complicating things as I think we are retaining the last 6 days - if you include the weeks, the last 6 weeks if you include the monthlies.

What does everyone else think?


Remember: Backups save jobs!!!
;-)

 

[davidmichel]

The GFS is setup with three media pools, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, each with its own retention time and minimum number of tapes. The last full backup of the week is the Weekly the last full backup of the month is the Monthly.

So if you want to have five Daily tapes on hand, the retention time for the Daily Media Pool is set to five days.

 

[TechLad]

Yeah I understand that, what I am trying to deduce is if as a company we say - we can recover the last 5 days worth of changes (i.e. Mon - Fri) should we have 5 days worth of daily tapes or 4 ?

i.e.

D1 - mon
D2 - tue
D3 - wed
D4 - thu
Wx - fri

D5 - mon

See my problem? the whoel rotation of tapes (not the Arcserve side) keeps skipping...an admin nightmare!

I think we should have...

D1 - mon
D2 - tue
D3 - wed
D4 - thu
Wx - fri

D1 - mon

This meets the 5 days worth of changes commitment...

Apologies for the length of post but I have got my head so far up this one I am getting confused!



Remember: Backups save jobs!!!
;-)

 

[davidmichel]

In your case four because as you point out the fifth day is covered by the Weekly. Many customers backup six days a week and so would need to have five Dailies.