Data Protector Express User's Guide (TC330-96002, October 2010)

Backup Schedule Considerations
Data Protector Express lets you set up jobs that run automatically on regular sched ules. To determine
which type of backup job you should create, ask yourself these questions:
• How many days of data can you afford to lose?
• How large will a full backup job be?
• How much does your data change on a day to day basis?
• How many media does your budget allow?
• How much data can the backup media hold?
• If you have a library, how many tapes d oes it hold?
• Are there times when your tape drive will be unavailable?
• Will the amount of traffic on your n etwork require that backup jobs be scheduled to run during
non-peak periods?
• Are there certain days of the week when running lengthy jobs will interfere with other uses of
your network?
As you review the following sections, keep these questions in m ind to help you determine which backup
job schedule to select for any particular job.
Scheduling Concepts
One of the grea test values of a data protection solution like Data Protector Express is the ability to define
data retention policies. Retention policies allow you to balance your data protection and historical
retention need s with the econom ic realities of m e dia material and management costs.
Media Sets
Data Protector Express organizes media into sets based on the rotation type and schedule interval.
Whether the job requires several or only one physical media to complete, they a re identified in the Data
Protector Express c atalog as a set. When more than one p hysical media is required for a job, Data
Protector Express will create a u nique na m e for each media in the set.
When planning scheduled backup jobs, it is important to know whether one or several physical media
will be required to complete a backup job. This can usually be estimated by comparing the size of the
backup selection to the capacity of the selected media. If you do not want Data Protector Express to use
more than one media for a backup job, then you must select fewer files to back up.
NOTE:
The terms media can be used to refer to both physical media, like an LTO tape, or to the catalog object
Data Protector Express uses to keep track of file versions that have been backed up.
Intervals
Job schedules are defined using the Intervals Daily, Weekly, Monthly,andYearly.Intervalsareused
to defined which days a job will run, what type of backup (full, incremental, differential, or copy) will
be done
, and how many sets of media are dedicated to the inter val. The size of an interval refers to
the amount of time between runs of that interval.
When the Run repeatedly schedule t ype is chosen the job Configuration page will show an additional
sectio
n, Interval setting s, that control the schedule parameters. Each interval type is listed along with
50
Scheduling, Rotations, and Media Management