Back-up schemes / advise

[brettums]

I
recently purchased an Overland Powerloader which holdes 19 AIT tapes. I
really do not have any past experience w/ configuring a tape autoloader. I
can figure out how to use the autoloader, but my problem is I don't know
what would best suit Fay's needs for job set-up & rotation method. Does
anyone currently use an autoloader in their organization? (does not have
to be an overland product) If so, I'd be interested in knowing how you do
these things.

Just so you know, I'm going from BackupExec 8.6 to 9.0. As for tapes
etc... I'm coming from a DDS3 tapes to AIT tapes. My current rotation is
as follows: I do the Grandfather, Father, Son (GFS) rotation method which
consists of the following:

-Two week rotation M-Th Incremental and Fri Full. (previous week is taken
offsite)
- Monthly Offsite tapes are done on the Last day of the month and is
consists of a Full backup.
- End of yr, I'll do a yrly Full backup for archive

I'd like to keep the current rotation method, but I'm not sure how I can
set this up in Backup Exec and by using an autoloader.

Thanks everyone!
-Brett

 

[SQLBill]

I use a Dell PowerVault 136T with 24 tapes. It's sole purpose is to backup a SQL Server 2000 server.

First. When I installed Backup Exec, I used Veritas' Drivers.

Second. I imported the tapes via BE. Then I inventoried them. This lets BE know what tapes it has to use.

Third. I created media sets. I have one for FullBackup, one for Differential, one for TransactionLogs, and one for Other. I DO NOT allow overwrite.

Fourth. I created my backup jobs.

I directed each backup job to the proper media set. When a tape gets full and the information on it is no longer needed, I move it to scratch media. When the tape gets old, I remove it and replace it (export the tape being replaced, import the new tape, then do an inventory of the new tape).

With an autoloader you don't need to worry about switching tapes if your job requires two or more tapes. You also don't have to worry about cleaning the drives, Backup Exec detects the drive needs cleaned and automatically does it. If you do have to do it, you can still manually clean the tape via BE. Either way, BE automatically updates the cleaning statistics.

-SQLBill