Rotation schedule - where do you start?

[Adam Pearce]

Hi,
I am sorry to keep asking questions about this software but it seems to work a very strange way. I am using Data Protector Express 3.10 sp4.

I am trying to set up a very simple backup schedule. I have 4 tapes (Monday-Thursday) and then 4 more tapes (All Fridays). All I want to do is have the Monday-Thrusday done at 10PM incrementally and the Friday done at the same time but Full.

Firstly I tried doing a full backup on the tapes throughout the week and then started the rotation schedule the next week. This didn't work, it just ejected the tape and said it was the wrong media.

I have tried again by creating a different media folder and setting the job from scratch. I have gone through the options and set the schedule (Incremental backup, 4 sets, every 1 day and Week Full backup, 4 sets every 1 week on Friday).

It set the first backup (Monday) to a weekly so I changed it to daily. I then set the job to 1PM so that I could watch it happen and it did. The problem is it only backed up 270 files. When I do a full backup the count comes out at around 65,000.

What am I doing wrong? Could somebody link me or paste here a step by step set up for this type of rotation?

Thanks

[D Lancaster]

Actually you are very close to making it work like you expect. This is one of the most common rotation schemes for people that use a 1/8 Autoloader (1 drive, 8 tapes).

To start you are going to need 8 blank tapes. If you are going to re-use existing tapes, make sure you erase them first using DP Express (that is erase NOT format).

I have attached some screen shots as an example to follow.

Set up a new backup job as you have in the past with a custom rotation schedule. Set the Weekly backup as "Full" with 4 rotation sets.

Set the Daily backup as "incremental" with 4 rotation sets and if you want Monday to always correlate to set 1 then be sure to tell it to start with the right set number. In my example it would start the daily backup on Wednesday night so I set it to start with set 3.

I would highly recommend you leave the first backup as a Weekly. That guarantees that it will be a full backup to start and explains why you didn't get the result you expected.

In my example the first tape used would be labeled Weekly Set 1. The next would be Daily Set 3 and so on until after you have run for 3-4 weeks you will end up with your 8 tapes named:
- Daily Set 1
- Daily Set 2
- Daily Set 3
- Daily Set 4
- Weekly Set 1
- Weekly Set 2
- Weekly Set 3
- Weekly Set 4

A couple of final thoughts.

Let DP Express format and name the tapes. You can check the log after the job completes to see what it named it and then label the tape accordingly.

On the option page you probably want to set the "Overwrite" option. If you leave the default "Append" option you are going to have to guess when you need a new set of tapes or wait for a "Tape Full" error and a backup that didn't complete.

If you use a new, blank tape, DP Express will lable it something like "Daily Set 1:1" to distinguish it from the original "Daily Set 1".

Finally, if you forget to change tapes one night don't skip the job. Just go ahead and change in the morning. DP Express will wait until the correct tape is in the drive and then finish the job. (This is where a 1/8 autoloader really takes away the work and worry.)

Dave L

[Adam Pearce]

Hey Dave,
Thank you so much for your detailed reply. That has helped me so much!!

I am going to try this tomorrow as the utility is busy at the moment and will let you know how it works out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Adam Pearce