Help - Need Backup Schedule

[site4sure]

Hello Everyone,

I am in need of a backup schedule for a company I am working with. The people who will be doing the backup or replacing the tapes are novices, but I hope to come up with a schedule where it will be easy for them to do. We have a Dell PowerEdge server with RAID 5. We have Veritas Backup Exec 8.6. We have a 20/40GB tape drive also. We also have a total of 8 tapes. The two people doing the backup is Janice and Cindy. We need to make sure that data tapes are taken home and also a full backup is done sometime. My other problem has been with getting the tapes to overwrite so I cna start a clean backup. Can someone help me determine a schedule for monday-friday.

-Chris, CCNA

 

[jseal66]

Firstly, set "Overwrite Protection" to "none".
Then move all your tapes into "Scratch Media" (initially).
Tapes will then be allocated automatically to the appropriate Media Set as each backup completes.

Set your Schedule to Eject the tape. This ensures the previous night's backup won't be overwritten.

I would do a Full backup each night (if tape capacity allows for this). If not, do a Full backup each Monday and a differential for the remaining days.

No need to set "Verify" in the backup job, as modern tape drives (eg. DLT) do a verify themselves (built into the hardware).

And don't forget to use a cleaning tape at least once a month.

That should get you going.

Of course we can't control the "human factor". That is, getting people to physically pull the tape out, replace it and then take it home - and remember to bring it back in !

Regards,

John.

 

[Qdog]

Nice comment about the Verify.
If you do not do a verify and 'Write checksums to media', then there is no guarantee that the data on the tape can be read. Had a client that never did verifies....they tried to restore when they lost a server and data on the tape was garbage and so was every other tape they had.

 

[jseal66]

Dear Qdog,

I received the "Verify" tip from an instructor at Veritas ! I also received confirmation from a support person at Veritas, as I was surprised too.

This is why customers should perform periodical "test restores" if possible. It need not be the entire system of course, but early detection is the key.

Your backup is only as good as your restore.

John.

 

[NCLSupport]

Good answers from both of you. The answer is simple - Do a verify on the backup job at least once per week (i do it on friday's as we dont work sats here..) and carry out test restores regulary.

Oh and buy some more tapes - I suggest a total of 10 tapes for a simple 2 week rotation - add to that 12 tapes for the month end backups most sites keep.

Good Luck