Monthly Rotation Script?

[bgaspers]

I want to set up a script that rotates on a monthly basis between two backup sets (one set one month, one set the next month, then back to the first set, etc.). The first day of the month would be a recycle backup, then a normal backup the rest of the month. I would specify a new media backup every three to six months or so.

 

 

 

The Retrospect manual is less than clear in setting up such a script. What is the best approach to doing so?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

Brett

[Marck]

Hi BG,

 

 

 

I've got exactly the same question, and I haven't been able to figure out a reasonable way to do it yet either. Perpetually appending to an ever growing set of tapes doesn't work for us, and a weekly rotation will use a lot more tapes and is really overkill for our needs. It would also mean someone (probably me) has to change tapes for a full backup every weekend.

 

 

 

We want to run a full recycle or new media backup to tape over the first weekend of each month, and then append changed files each weeknight with normal backups. At the end of each month, we would start on a new set of tape with a new full backup and start appending again. The previous month's tape would be rotated off site once the new full backup was completed successfully, and recycled in a year. That would give us a year's worth of snapshots, while minimizing the number of tapes needed to restore at any point in time.

 

 

 

I've created twelve Backup sets called Jan, Feb, Mar and so forth. Setting up the Monthly recycle backups for the first Friday of each month was easy, but filling in the days of the month with normal backups to each month's backup set has so far eluded me. The only thing I've been able to conceive of is to set up twelve weekly backup schedules for MTWTF (one going to each monthly backup set) and set the starting dates after each month's Recycle backup, and then manually reset the start dates at the end of each month to resume on the following January, February, etc.

 

 

 

I think that would work, but it's kind of messy. If you forget to disable the daily backups to the March tape, it will keep trying to execute concurrently with the April backups.

 

 

 

A monthly rotation tab would simplify this tremendously, but there isn't one in Retrospect for Windows v5.6, Server edition.

 

 

 

Has anyone figured out how to do this??

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

Marck

 

 

[bgaspers]

Well, since no one from Dantz seems inclined to answer this question, here's what I've done:

 

 

 

I created a normal script to do a recycle backup every month, alternating every month between 2 backup sets (i.e., A in April, B in May, A in June, etc.). This executes the first of every month. So what about daily backups?

 

 

 

Well, since I'm using a server to do a network backup, I created a backup server script to back everything up on a daily basis. Then, when I swap tapes at the beginning of each month, the backup server will automatically use whichever backup set is available.

 

 

 

In other words, you are still screwed if you can't use the backup server.

 

 

 

I totally agree that a monthly rotation tab (or option in Easyscript) is a must. I'm surprised that Dantz is so clueless they've never picked up on the fact that a lot of users want to do monthly rotation.

 

 

 

Brett

[Marck]

Hi Brett,

 

 

 

Thanks for your post.

 

 

 

We're using a backup server also, and yes, if it was down we'd be in trouble, but that would be true in any case. Backing up the Macs isn't its sole function.

 

 

 

I also set up a script with monthly full backups using the handy "1st Friday of the month" specification. That part was easy. I've got 12 backup sets and each one does a full recycle backup on the first Friday of its month each year.

 

 

 

The part that gets me is the daily backups, which you seem to have solved. To wit...

 

 

 

<>

 

 

 

How did you set up the script so it would use whatever backup set was available? That's the part I'm missing... if I could do that, I think this scheme would work pretty well.

 

 

 

Please let me know what you can, and thanks again,

 

 

 

Marck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bgaspers]

Didn't realize you were using a backup server, too. If you are just using the desktop/express version of Retrospect (no backup server), you are probably screwed.

 

 

 

The key part of this is that you need to specifically use a backup server script; these are different from the regular scripts it sounds like you are using. When you first create a script, you should see an option for a backup server script.

 

 

 

To paraphrase the Retrospect manual (i.e., RTFM), the backup server will use whatever tape (or other media) is available to backup the clients specified in the script. This is kind of amorphous and deprives you of the ability to schedule backups, but is works well enough for me.

 

 

 

The backup server backs up all clients on a daily basis. When the regular script runs at the beginning of each month, it overrides the backup server.

 

 

 

Brett

[Marck]

Hi Brett,

 

 

 

Thanks for the info.

 

 

 

I found the Backup Server option you mentioned, and I'm going to give it a try over this weekend... we normally don't backup these Macs on weekends, so that won't conflict with any other scheduled backups.

 

 

 

It's a little unnerving that they don't show up in the Preview of scheduled operations, but as long as the jobs are logged and tracked like normal scheduled backups, it should be OK. It beats the heck out of having to have a normal backup schedule for every backup set and worry about which tape is in the drive this month.

 

 

 

Do I assume correctly that the Backup Server script will use whichever catalog matches the tape that's in the drive at the time? Also, any pointers to additional info on this method would be great... I've never used it before.

 

 

 

Thanks again,

 

 

 

Marck

 

 

[bgaspers]

With a backup server, scheduled backups don't matter. Retrospect is either doing a scheduled backup or is running the backup server. The two won't run simultaneously.

 

 

 

That is also why they don't show up in the preview. There is no schedule to backup server backups. Clients are backed up when available according to the time interval you specify. You can see in the backup server window when a client is intended to be backed up, but that can change if the client goes offline or defers a backup. The jobs are always logged just like a normal backup, so no worries there.

 

 

 

>Do I assume correctly that the Backup Server script will use whichever catalog matches the tape that's in the drive at the time?

 

 

 

That is correct.

 

 

 

>Also, any pointers to additional info on this method would be great

 

 

 

I hadn't really understood the distinction between scheduled and backup server scripts until I ran into this problem and really dug through the manual to get the distinction. But once you understand that the backup server just uses whatever backup media happens to be around, that is about all there is to it.

 

 

 

Brett

[Marck]

Thanks again, Brett. We'll see how it goes.

 

 

 

Marck

 

 

[sobiloff]

Marck,

 

 

 

I recently started evaluating Retrospect Server and have the same desire as you do for a monthly rotation script. Could you share how well using the backup server functionality worked for you? TIA!

[Marck]

 

 

HI Sobiloff,

 

 

 

So far so good. I set up one script that does the monthly recycle Backup jobs, and another that does the nightly "Backup Server" job of adding changed files to whatever backup set is active at the time. I set the Backup Server job to run between 10pm and 5am so it doesn't impact the users, and do the full/recycle backups on the first Friday of each month so they have all weekend to complete.

 

 

 

I've had one of our servers doing this for the last few weeks and it's been working across two different monthly backup sets... knock on wood, it seems to be working fine, but I haven't had toime or occasion to test restore a group of files and compare them to the originals. Truth be told, I wouldn't know how to DO a binary file compare on a Mac.

 

 

 

It's a little unnerving that the Backup Server jobs don't show up in the preview of scheduled operations, but the results of it do show up in the Backup Report and Backup Log files. So, if you check those files each day, you know the status on your backups.

 

 

 

Any specific questions I can answer, let me know.

 

 

 

Marck