This chapter covers the options available for customizing your backups. By using Backup's advanced configuration capabilities you have the opportunity to tailor your backups to meet the specific needs of your network. The commands for configuring your backups are located in the Customize pull- down menu.
Caution -
The following are tasks for customizing Backup:
The individual backup schedule chosen for each client determines the level and schedule of the backup. The information in this section describes how to create your own customized backup schedule in the Schedules window, which you then apply to individual clients in the Clients window.
Note - Backup provides five preconfigured schedules: Default, Full on 1st of Month, Quarterly, Full on 1st Friday of Month, and Full Every Friday. They are described in Appendix A of the Installation and Maintenance Guide in the section "Preconfigured Backup Schedules." You can make changes to the existing preconfigured backup schedules, but you cannot change their names. If you want to change the name of a schedule, you must delete it and re-create it, using a new schedule name.
Create new backup schedules for your Backup clients in the Schedules window.
To open the Schedules window, select Schedules from the Customize pull- down menu.
The Schedules window appears, as shown.
The Schedules window contains the following items:
When you select Week and set up a schedule, the backup level you select is applied to that day of the week for all weeks in the calendar (for example, level fulls every Sunday).
When you select Month and set up a schedule, the backup level you select is applied to that day of the month for all months in the calendar (for example, level fulls on the fifteenth of each month).
Note - Each time you click the Previous Month button, Backup displays the previous two months in the calendar year; each time you click the Next Month button, Backup displays the next two months in the calendar year.
An asterisk (*) next to a backup level means you have forced a different level (an override) for that day. For example, you scheduled a full backup on every Monday of the month, but the second Monday is a holiday. You can force a "skip backup" for the second Monday and force a full backup on Tuesday instead.
Before setting up a backup schedule, decide which schedule best fits the needs of your network and learn about the backup levels Backup supports.
This section illustrates setting up backup schedules with two examples. We suggest that you read through the examples before you try to set up any new schedules on your own.
To create a new schedule, name the schedule and select your choices in the Schedules window. Then apply the schedule to a client in the Clients window.
This schedule is suitable for Backup clients with files that change often. You want to do a full backup every Monday because a weekly full backup simplifies the disaster recovery process. You also want to do a full backup on Mondays because someone will be available to change the media and monitor the server. The other days of the week, incremental backups protect the files that have changed since the last backup. You are going to name the backup schedule "Monday Full" to remind yourself that this schedule does a full backup every week, on Mondays.
To set up the "Monday Full" schedule, follow these steps:
Notice all the Sundays of the calendar change to a backup level "i," which means incremental backup.
Next, set the calendar to do a full backup every Monday:
Note - If you see the error message "user user_name needs to be on administrator's list," it means you do not have permission to make changes to Backup configurations.
See "Adding or Changing Administrators" in Chapter 4 for more information.
All the Mondays in both calendars display "f" next to the date, indicating a full backup takes place instead of the incremental backup. When you scroll through all the months, you see how the schedule set up for the current month is maintained throughout the entire calendar.
Use a monthly schedule for clients with files that do not change often. These clients only need a full backup performed once a month.
In this schedule, a full backup takes place on the first day of the month. A level 5 backup takes place in the middle of the month, which backs up all the files that have changed since the full backup. All other days of the month, an incremental backup protects daily changes.
Name this schedule "Monthly Full" to remind you that this schedule does a full backup only once a month. Skip the level 5 backup with an override on November 16 because it is a company holiday; instead force the backup on November 17.
To set up the "Monthly Full" schedule, follow these steps:
Notice the months are already set up to do a full backup on the first day.
Note - When you set up one month in the Schedules window, that setup applies to all calendar months, and carries over from year to year. In the same way, if you set up a weekly schedule, it applies for all calendar weeks. This allows you to plan all the weeks or months in one session, without having to repeat the process every week or month.
Set the month for a level 5 backup on the sixteenth day:
Scroll through the months, and notice how the monthly schedule is carried through every month - a full backup on the first day, a level 5 on the sixteenth day, and incremental backups on the other days of the month.
Next, override the scheduled level 5 backup on November 16 with a level "skip," to skip the backup for that day, and schedule the level 5 backup for November 17:
The date on November 16 displays an "s*," indicating you have forced a "skip backup" instruction for that day. The date on November 17 displays a "5*" to indicate a level 5 backup will take place instead of the incremental. Overrides must be scheduled explicitly each time. An override does not automatically repeat within a monthly or weekly period.
Use this shortcut section if you are an experienced Backup user, or you have reviewed the examples preceding this section.
To create a backup schedule, follow these steps:
You may set up as many of the Backup software backup schedules as you like, as long as you give each one a unique name. To assign a backup schedule to a client, you must use the Clients window. See Chapter 3, "Configuring Clients," for more information.
Backup makes it easy to set up your backup schedules. However, deciding which backup schedule best fits your requirements needs planning.
When creating backup schedules, consider the following items.
For example:
Suppose the capacity of an 8mm tape cartridge is about 5 gigabytes and the maximum transfer rate is around 500 kilobytes per second. Based on these figures it would take more than 5 hours to back up 10 gigabytes of data. To back up a network with a lot of data, you may use more than one schedule to stagger the full backups over several days.
Think about how many backup volumes you want to keep - this number will depend on how often the data changes and how long you want to keep the files available for recovery.
If you run only incremental backups every night, you will need more backup volumes to fully recover from a disk crash. If a site has 10 gigabytes of data and 5% of all the data is modified each day, that means you need to back up 500 megabytes of data every day. At 400 kilobytes per second, 500 megabytes takes about 25 minutes to back up and fills about one tenth of an 8mm tape cartridge. If you hold on to backups for three months, you will need to maintain 12 8mm tapes.
You must also determine a policy for recovering files. For example, if the users expect to recover any version of a lost file for at least three months, maintain all the backup volumes for a three-month period. On the other hand, if the users only expect to recover the latest version of a lost file, use level [1-9] backups to decrease the quantity of backup volumes you need to maintain. For more information on policies see "Creating Index Policies" on page 177.
Backup supports four kinds of backup levels.
If you do not need to maintain every version of a backed-up file online, you may use a backup scheme that includes occasional full backups followed by level [1-9] and incremental backups. Different backup levels allow you to trade off the number of backup volumes and amount of time required to complete a backup with the number of backup volumes and amount of time required to recover from a disk crash.
The following diagram illustrates how backup levels work.
Assume you use a new backup volume for each daily backup.
On day 1, a full backup is run. On day 2, the incremental backs up everything
that has changed since the full backup. On day 3, the incremental backs up
everything that has changed since day 2. On day 4, the incremental backs up
everything that has changed since day 3. At this point, you have 4 backup
volumes.
To recover from a disk crash, you need all four of them - the one with the full
backup (day1), and all the volumes with incremental backups.
On day 5, the level 8 backs up everything that has changed since the full backup. You no longer need the data on the backup volumes from day 2, 3, or 4. To do a full recovery from a disk crash, you only need two backup volumes: the full backup volume and the level 8 backup volume.
On day 9, the level 7 backs up everything that has changed since the full backup. You still only need two backup volumes to recover a disk: the full backup and the level 7.
Level [1-9] backups help you maintain control of your pool of backup volumes. Carefully planning your backup strategy allows you to recover everything on a disk with a minimum number of backup volumes.
Note - You also control the size and time it takes to back up your data by using directives, which compress and eliminate unnecessary data from your backups. See the section "Using Directives" on page 183.
This section describes how to create policies that automatically manage the online indexes. You can also manage the indexes manually with the Indexes and Volumes windows. See "Manually Managing the Online Indexes" in Chapter 3 for a description of manual index management and index policy concepts.
When Backup starts a backup, it creates entries for the saved files in the online indexes. Backup maintains two types of indexes: a file index and a media index. The file index contains entries for the individual files which are backed up in groups as save sets. The media index stores entries for the backup volumes that contain the backed up save sets.
The media index does not recognize individual files, but instead recognizes the save sets to which the files belong. Backup maintains one file index per client and one media index per Backup server. Backup uses the indexes as databases to locate files marked for recovery.
As these indexes grow, they take up more disk space. Backup uses browse and retention policies to manage and reduce the size of the online indexes. Use the Policies window to create browse policies for managing the file index entries and retention policies for managing the media index entries. A policy (preconfigured or one you create yourself) can be used as either a browse or a retention policy.
Apply the policies to individual clients in the Clients window by selecting them from the Browse and Retention policies scrolling lists.
Note - Backup provides the following preconfigured policies: Decade, Month, Quarter, Week, and Year. Refer to Appendix A in the Solstice Backup 4.2 Installation and Maintenance Guide for more information on preconfigured policies.
Use the Policies window to create new policies for your browse and retention policies.
Select Policies from the Customize pull-down menu to open the Policies window.
The Policies window appears, as shown.
The Policies window contains the following items:
For example: A choice of Months for the Period and 3 for the Number of Periods means Backup automatically removes index entries from the online file index that are older than three months.
To create a new policy, follow these steps:
If you make a mistake, click the Reset button to reset the window to the previous selections.
You can enter any name for the policy that you want. Using the time period for policy names helps you remember the length of the policy. For example, when you specify Quarter as a browse policy for a client, it is easy to tell that the entries are kept in the online file index for three months.
Follow these steps to delete a policy:
Note - You cannot delete the preconfigured Backup policies or policies currently applied to a client.
Follow these steps to change a policy:
Caution -
Every backup adds entries to the indexes, so the indexes require management in order to control their size and contents. Backup automatically manages the contents of the indexes by using the policies you chose for each client. You can conserve disk space by using automatic index policies to remove old index entries.
Each client requires two separate policies: a browse policy and a retention policy. Backup compares the backup date of the entries in the indexes with the time period specified by the policies. The browse policy determines how long entries for your files remain in the online file index and thus browsable in the Backup Recover window. File index entries older than the browse policy plus one cycle are automatically removed from the online file index, reducing disk space requirements. The retention policy determines how long entries for your volumes are retained in the media index and are available for recovery. Media index entries older than the retention policy plus one cycle are marked as recyclable in the media index, making the backup volume available for relabeling and overwriting with new data. The files on the volumes are deleted when you overwrite the volume with new data.
If you create new policies for automatic index management using the Policies window, the policies appear as selections for both the browse and retention policies in the Clients window. You determine the amount of time files remain browsable and recoverable for a client.
The following diagram illustrates the interaction between an entry in the indexes and the index policies.
Directives can reduce the amount of data you back up, possibly even eliminating the need to change backup volumes on the days you perform a full backup.
A directive contains instructions to assist the backup process. Sometimes directives require execution of special programs called Application Specific Modules (ASMs), which are Backup modules that perform specific operations on files. Refer to the uasm man page for more information on ASMs.
Backup is shipped with the following preconfigured directives: DOS standard, Index, NetWare standard, NT standard, NT with compression, Unix standard, and Unix with compression. Each set of directives covers the most important and most useful backup instructions.
Note - For more information about preconfigured directives refer to Appendix A in the Solstice Backup 4.2 Installation and Maintenance Guide.
Use the Directives window to create new directives or change the preconfigured directives.
To open the Directives window, select Directives from the Customize pull- down menu.
The Directives window appears, as shown.
The Directives window contains the following items.
Backup backs up your data effectively with the existing preconfigured directives. However, you can create new directives or change existing ones.
To create a set of directives or modify existing instructions, follow these steps:
Note - For more information about directives, including algorithms and the correct syntax used to apply them, refer to the nsr man page.
Suppose your Backup client is a fast machine, but your network is slow or busy. You may want to compress client files in order to use less backup volumes and network bandwidth backing up its files. Using the compressasm directive can reduce the space consumed on a backup volume by as much as 50% (actual savings may vary). If you use compressasm on all the files that back up, a full backup of 8 gigabytes may fit onto a single backup volume.
Caution -
Use the skip directive to omit certain files from the backup entirely. You can use pattern matching to apply the instructions to specific files in the directory tree. For example, you can have Backup skip backing up core files and ".o" files.
Backup generates labels for backup volumes according to the rules of a label template. Label templates provide a method for consistently naming and labeling your backup volumes. You can use the preconfigured label templates or create custom label templates using the Label Templates window.
Note - Backup also provides the ability to label your jukebox volumes with bar code labels. See "Understanding Labeling with Bar Codes" in Chapter 8 for more information.
This section describes how to use label templates, introduces preconfigured templates, describes how to create a custom label template, and provides examples for your use.
Backup uses label templates to label and keep track of your backup volumes. All of the backup volumes belong to volume pools that require corresponding label templates. For more information on pools, see the section "Using Volume Pools," in Chapter 5.
It does not matter to Backup how the volumes are labeled as long as each one has a unique name. It tracks the backups and maps them to the backup volumes, so you do not have to remember which backups are on which volumes. When Backup needs a backup volume for recovery, it requests it by name in the Pending display of the Backup Administrator window.
Backup provides the following preconfigured label templates: Archive, Archive Clone, Default, Default Clone, Full, Migration, Migration Clone, NonFull, Offsite, PC Archive, PC Archive Clone, and Two Sided. These preconfigured label templates allow you to easily begin labeling your backup volumes without having to create any templates yourself.
Backup also provides preconfigured volume pools with names corresponding to the preconfigured label templates. The preconfigured volume pools automatically use the preconfigured label templates of the same name. The number range for all of the preconfigured label templates starts at "001" and ends with "999" to allow for expansion of the volume pools.
Note - For more information about preconfigured label templates refer to Appendix A in the Solstice Backup 4.2 Installation and Maintenance Guide.
Before you choose a label template, you must first choose the device that contains media ready for labeling from the Devices display in the Backup Administrator window. Next, choose a label template in the Pools window, then start the labeling process by selecting Label from the Media pull-down menu.
For a label template to appear as a choice in the Label window, the associated pool must be enabled in the Pools window.
Caution -
This section explains how to create your own custom label templates using the Label Templates window.
Open the Label Templates window by selecting Label Templates from the Customize pull-down menu.
The Label Templates window appears, as shown.
The Label Templates window contains the following items:
Each component appears as one line in the display. There are four types of components:
If you enter a range of numbers or characters, the label number increments with each new label. For example:
------------------------------------
first label Engineering.001 second label Engineering.002 third label Engineering.003 ------------------------------------
Each range includes a starting value, a dash (-), and an ending value. The starting value and the ending value must have the same number of characters. For example, use "aaa-zzz," not "aa-zzz." (This rule does not apply to a list of strings or words.) You may have as many components as you want, but it is best to keep the template simple, with few components. The total length of the label cannot exceed 64 characters.
Use the examples in this section to help you create a custom label template that identifies your media in a logical and meaningful order.
If your label template matches your backup media storage system, it helps you organize and locate the media in storage. For example, if you store backup media in bins or racks, include a place for the bin or rack number in the label template.
It is also helpful if the label template name matches the name of the corresponding pool. For example:
-----------------------------------------
Name Label Pool Name -----------------------------------------
AcctFull AcctFull.001 Accounting
AcctFull.002
AcctFull.003
EngTest EngTest.001 Engineering Test
EngTest.002
EngTest.003
-----------------------------------------
In this example, assume you have only one Backup server and one jukebox. Your backup media is magnetic tape, arranged in numerical order, and organized in three racks. You want to create a scheme that is simple so anyone can easily store and find the backup volumes on the rack shelves.
This example shows three racks, named "1," "2," and "3." Each rack has five shelves; the top shelf is "1" and the bottom shelf is "5." Each shelf holds 100 tapes, left-to-right.
Using this labeling scheme, a tape labeled "2-3-54" will be stored in the second rack, on the third shelf, positioned between the fifty-third and fifty-fifth tapes on the shelf. Backup labels the tapes in the jukebox consecutively according to the label template. Backup starts with the tapes in the first rack, on the first shelf, and numbers the tapes 1-1-001 to 1-1-100. Then, the tapes on the second shelf of the first rack are labeled, numbered from 1-2-001 to 1-2-100, and so forth, until the last tape in the third rack is labeled "3-5-100." If you want to add a fourth rack to your tape storage system, you can easily do so by changing the label template.
Note - Your label template should allow for expansion of your backup media storage system. For example, it is better to create a template for 100 tapes and not use all of them, than to create a template for only 10 tapes and run out of labels.
Follow these steps to create the storage oriented label template:
Note - You must enter the same number of characters for all numbers in the label template.
For example, use:
01-20 not 1-20
1-9 not 01-9
Add the second and third components of the label template:
The Label Templates window now looks similar to the following.
Your new template appears in the Label Templates scrolling list, the components of the label template appear in the Fields scrolling list, and the Next field displays the label of the next tape.
This example uses a sequential labeling scheme. In this scheme, there is no storage system pattern to follow - the labels are simply a way for Backup to identify the backup volumes. This label template will generate lots of labels - you will probably never "run out" of labels for your backup volumes.
The label template in this example has two fields: "aa-zz" and "00-99." It will generate 67,600 different labels (262 times 102). To give you an idea of how Backup generates labels, below is a sample of the labels:
--------------------------------------
aa.00, aa.01, aa.02... aa.98, aa.99, ab.00, ab.01,... ab.99, ac.00, ac.01,...ac.99, ... az.00,...az.99, ba.00,...bz.99, ... zz.00,...zz.99 --------------------------------------
Follow these steps to create a sequential label template:
Add the second component of the label template:
This template is useful if you do not want to attach any meaning to the labels, but want to be able to generate lots of them over the years and not worry about having to come up with a new template.
If you have an optical backup device, you can use the Two Sided preconfigured
template or create a custom label template that accommodates two-sided
media. The label template for
two-sided media has a and b fields to designate the two sides of the optical
disk.
Follow these steps to create a label template for two-sided media.
Caution -
The Label Templates window now looks similar to the following.
Using the example shown, Backup labels the first side of the optical disk as moon.001.a and the second side as moon.001.b.
Caution -
Backup allows you to bundle clients into backup groups so you can easily start selected groups of clients backing up at different times. When you create the different groups, be sure to stagger their backup times to avoid overloading the server.
Backup is shipped with the Default group to which Backup automatically adds all of the clients. You must enable the Default group before it will automatically back up at 3:33 a.m. You are permitted to make changes to the Default group, but you may not delete it.
If you have a large number of clients, consider creating several groups with different backup times to help reduce network traffic. For example, start the backup of the engineering department machines at four o'clock in the morning, and all the other clients on the network at midnight. You can have any number of backup groups on your Backup server. The clients in each backup group start their automatic backups according to the start time of the group.
Note - Create groups in the Groups window. Select groups for individual clients in the Clients window.
This section explains how to create new groups using the Groups window.
Open the Groups window by selecting Groups from the Customize
pull-down menu.
The Groups window appears, as shown.
You may choose to add all of your clients to the Default group. However, that may not be an efficient way to accomplish backing up client data across the network.
To create a new group and assign a backup start time to the group, follow these steps:
Caution -
The name of the group appears in the Groups scrolling list. If you make a mistake, click the Reset button to clear your changes and start over.
Note - If the error message "user user_name needs to be on administrator`s list" appears, it means you do not have permission to make configuration changes. See "Adding or Changing Administrators" in Chapter 4 for more information.
After you create a backup group and set the start time, the group appears as a
check box in the
Backup normally attempts to back up a client in a group once during a scheduled backup. If Backup cannot back up a client in a group (because the client machine is down, for example), it will not try again unless you set a value for Client retries.
Use the Client retries sliding bar in the Clients window to set the number of times you want Backup to keep trying to back up failed clients.
The number of times you set for Backup to attempt backing up a failed client appears in the Client retries field.
To change the start time for a backup group, follow these steps:
If you make a mistake, click the Reset button to clear your changes and start over.
Backup does not let you delete a backup group while clients still belong to it. Before you try to delete a group, check the Clients window to make sure the group does not have clients. The Default group cannot be deleted.
To delete a group, follow these steps:
If the group does not have clients, the group is deleted and its name disappears from the Groups scrolling list. If the group you are trying to delete still has clients, the following warning appears:
System administrators need to know about events taking place in the Backup environment. To keep you informed of backup activity, Backup displays messages on the system console (/dev/console) or mails them to you electronically.
These notices alert you to important Backup events. If a group of clients did not complete a nightly backup for example, you are informed of this by the savegroup completion notices in your electronic mail.
Backup provides preconfigured notifications for the following events:
Note - For more information on the preconfigured notifications refer to Appendix A in the Solstice Backup 4.2 Installation and Maintenance Guide.
This section describes the contents of the Notifications window and how to use it for creating new notifications.
Open the Notifications window by selecting Notifications from the Customize pull-down menu.
The Notifications window appears, as shown.
The Notifications window contains the following items.
You can change the Action field to customize how Backup posts the notifications.
To create a new notification, follow these steps:
Note - Select Details from the View menu if you want to use the expert mode options for creating a more detailed notification. All event choices are enabled, by default. Click to disable event choices you do not want.
Backup provides powerful and versatile backup configurations. With the ability to customize Backup's backup configurations, you can create a highly individual and specific method for backing up the data on your network.