Question: How can I implement this strategy?

[guns4tots]

I'm working with the following setup:

1 server : win2k pro running retrospect6.5 multiserver

21 clients: windows, mac, linux and solaris

1 SDLT 320 tape drive (220/320GB)

1 200GB HD

 

I want to do a full backup of all clients to tape and then monthly incrementals to tape. I want daily incrementals to go to the 200GB HD. After every monthly incremental to tape I want to delete the "dailies" and start over with the dailies to disk.

 

Any ideas? Can this be done with retrospect?

 

Thanks in advance,

JSN

[paleolith]

Yes, as long as you are accept some manual intervention for the monthly backups.

 

Set up one script which does the backups to tape. Set it up as a "backup" (not "backup server") script.

 

Set up a second script for the daily backups to the HD.

 

When you are ready to do your monthlies, run the tape script. When it has finished correctly, reset the HD backup set.

 

It's difficult to completely automate a monthly backup in Retrospect (unless the schedule has been extended recently -- I'm still on v4.3). The "backup every nn hours" maxes out at 99 hours, and the backup schedule is on a weekly basis. If you want to do the tape backups weekly instead of monthly, then you could automate part of the month.

 

Edward

[guns4tots]

Thanks for your reply Edward.

Retrospect 6.5 multiserver has the ability to schedule a script for once a month. The problem I'm having is with the initial image. The initial image of 21 clients is on the order of 400 GB. I don't have enough room to store that image on the 200 GB HD. However I should be able to store daily incrementals for a month(two weeks at least) on this hard drive.

 

I want to minimize tape usage, so I would like to have that large initial image go to tape, then the daily changes go to HD. I haven't been able to do this without also writing that huge initial image to the HD.

 

I thought maybe I could break these 21 clients up into ABCD groups, backup to file each group and separately tranfer them to tape and delete the file. How can I tell retrospect that I want it to use the catalog for the tape but dump the incremental to disk?

 

I need help. If this isn't possible, how can this type of strategy be performed? The idea is to make use of the relatively inexpensive HD space and minimize the more expensive tape usage.

 

JSN