Full Backup Every Weekday?

[ChuckP]

Here is what I would like to do:

 

Have a set of 10 backup tapes (Mon-1, Mon-2, Tues-1, etc.)

 

Have a scheduled backup job that runs every weekday that does a complete backup of the server.

 

The job would use whatever tape is in the drive and would overwrite the tape when the job started.

 

I am new to Retrospect and am trying to figure out how to do this. Our company disaster plan is to have off site tapes, so any tape must have a complete backup of the server. I cannot have several tapes in a backup set spread out with differing amounts of data. I thought I had figured it out with the Backup Set option to recycle media, but it looks like that gets reset after every backup job that runs.

 

Can someone point me in the right direction?

[rhwalker]

It can't be done easily, but can be done as a hack. Set up a script for each tape on each day, set a rather short media timeout, allow each backup script except one to time out. You will get 9 errors each day for the missing tapes, and only one meaningful backup.

 

As an aside, you really ought to consider an autoloader. It will change your life. Really.

 

Exabyte makes a 10-slot autoloader with a VXA-2 or VXA-3 drive that is reasonably priced. Check it out.

 

Regards,

 

Russ

[ChuckP]

But how do I get the next backup job that uses the tape for that day to do a full backup? Wouldn't it just keep doing the incremental that is normal for a backup set? In other words, doing this would solve the initial problem because the first backup is always a full one, but wouldn't subsequent jobs just be incremental?

[twickland]

You may be understandably confused between a backup set and a backup set member (i.e., piece of media). A tape backup set will always have at least one tape member. It will have more than one member only if the first member fills up and you supply additional tapes.

 

Rather than wanting 10 backup tapes, it sounds like what you really want is 10 tape backup sets. You can get by with a single script. List all 10 backup sets as destinations, and then create a schedule to write to the appropriate backup set on each given day. For example, you might create a scheduler to perform a recycle backup to backup set Mon-1 every 2 weeks on Mondays beginning on December 17, a scheduler to perform a recycle backup to backup set Mon-2 every 2 weeks on Mondays beginning on December 24, a scheduler to perform a recycle backup to backup set Tue-1 every 2 weeks on Tuesdays beginning on December 18, etc. Under this scheme, you would create 10 such schedulers in your backup script.

 

Normally, Retrospect would then require that the tape for the correct backup set be in the drive on the appropriate day, and this is actually the arrangement I would recommend so that you don't inadvertently erase your data before you intend to. However, if you select "Minimal erase confirmation" in Retrospect's general preferences, Retrospect should erase whatever tape happens to be in the drive.

 

I concur with Russ that you should really think about an autoloader for what you're trying to do. If you go that route, you shouldn't need to use the potentially dangerous "Minimal erase confirmation."

[ChuckP]

twickland and Russ,

 

Thanks. It is all starting to make more sense now.

 

I do have a question. As I understand things now, if I do a recycle backup every night using only one backup set (but multiple tapes), there would only be one snapshot for that backup set that would contain the last recycle backup done. However, could I insert any of the previously used tapes and would Retrospect be able to pull the data from those tapes by reading them even though the snapshot is not there any more?

[rhwalker]

You are sort of defeating the whole purpose of your scheme if you do a recycle backup each night. From the moment you start the recycle until that recycle backup completes, you are riding naked with no backup. And, you really aren't making any backups if you recycle each night. The whole point of backups is history, and you won't have any history.

 

Russ

[twickland]

Quote:

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I do have a question. As I understand things now, if I do a recycle backup every night using only one backup set (but multiple tapes)...

 

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You will have multiple tapes in a backup set only if you fill the previous tape member(s) or if you instruct Retrospect to skip to a new member.

 

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...there would only be one snapshot for that backup set that would contain the last recycle backup done.

 

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Actually, there will be one snapshot for every backup session (with each volume and each separate backup time constituting a different session).

 

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However, could I insert any of the previously used tapes and would Retrospect be able to pull the data from those tapes by reading them even though the snapshot is not there any more?

 

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This issue is not the snapshots, per se, which are merely a quick way to identify and restore those files that were on the source volume at a particular time. The issue is that all the tape members belonging to a single backup set have their contents listed in that backup set's catalog. Performing a recycle backup will reset the entire catalog back to zero.

Although you could retrieve data from the unerased tapes, this would require both a complicated workaround and rebuilding the desired portions of the catalog from the tapes. Trust me, you don't want to go there.

 

I had thought that what you wanted to do was always maintain the previous 9 days' worth of backed up data before recycling. The way to accomplish that with a full backup each night is with the 10 backup set arrangement I discussed above.

[ChuckP]

Quote:

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I had thought that what you wanted to do was always maintain the previous 9 days' worth of backed up data before recycling. The way to accomplish that with a full backup each night is with the 10 backup set arrangement I discussed above.

 

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Yes, you are correct. I am in the process of setting that up now. I was just trying to understand things a little better. Thanks for your help