TI9 How to rotate out older image backups

I have multiple clients setup with TI9 WS and TI9 Server.

On the server I have a 160GB with only about 20GB used. I have a second drive that is a 500GB for images.

I have scheduled an incremental backup every night. The first image was a full and the remainders are incremental.

Here are my problems / questions / concerns:

1) I am concerned with 1 full backup and many incrementals that if there is a problem with any one of them that I am screwed. What would you suggest as a method of scheduling backups? Do I do a monthly full and then incrementals throughout the month?

2) I also need an automated way to clear away older images. If I am using the example of one full and many incrementals then I think I have a problem. If I can some how setup monthly full images and daily incrementals then I can possibly setup something to automate the rotation out of older full images and the corresponding increments.

3) Ultimately I would like to have an automated way to have full images, along with incrementals, and the ability to rotate out the older stuff to avoid filling up the disk. I need this in both the WS and SRV versions.

Thank you.

 

If you schedule full backups, and then on a more frequent basis, incremental ones, your incremental backups will continue to be produced until the next full backup gets created.

At this point all the incrementals are effectively orphaned. You don't need to worry about deleting them because the next incrementals will overwrite them. TI recognises which incrementals belong to the most recent base image and which ones are orphaned.

As suggested by another contributor on the forum, I use four weekly overlapping backup sets in four subdirectories. In each I run a daily backup. Then I run a full backup in each one, to execute on the 1st,8th,15th & 22nd of each month. In this way I have a rolling daily backup over the last month. It is all automatic and there are no files to delete.

F.

 

Could you expand just a little more on your schedule. Sorry... just want to get my head around this.

Thanks

 

Hi myitanalyst

I have four subdirs named Week1,Week2,Week3,Week4.

I have a full scheduled task which backs up into Week1 on the 1st of each month
I have a full scheduled task which backs up into Week2 on the 8th of each month
I have a full scheduled task which backs up into Week3 on the 15th of each month
I have a full scheduled task which backs up into Week4 on the 22nd of each month

I have four incremental daily tasks, one for each subdirectory.

On the first day the tasks run, if there is no full backup in a subdir yet, the incremental is automatically created as a full one Each day after than an incremental is created in each subdir, based on the full already in there.

Whenever a full scheduled backup runs, it overwrites the previous full one in that directory and orpans the incrementals. The next time an incremental runs it overwrites the previous first incremental (e.g. back01.tib).

After a month you can go back to any day's data in the last month. I realise that setting up 8 schedules sounds a lot, but it isn' that bad, and hopefully you only need to do it once.

F.

 

That's pretty much what I was looking for. The whole orphan thing was what I was missing. I definitely do NOT want to have to write scripts to try and clear space and what not. My goal is to plan the backups in such a way that I get the most full / incrementals possible with room to allow the data to grow.

I would like to also hear how others are achieving this as well as this is one area I think many would want to understand.

Thanks

 

Hi myitanalyst,

another way some ATI users achieve this is by using the secure zone. This automatically handles the management, but is less transparent than holding files in a conventional partition. For some this obfuscation of backup data is an advantage in that it is difficult for end users to tamper with. Each to thier own - I prefer an approach with greater visibility and control.

Have a look at the ATI docs for more on the secure zone, or search this forum.

F.

 

I have used the secure zone on a computer that we know we will routinely recover like a public use computer, but I definitely prefer to see what I have and have more control over it like you.

 

Foghorne, I actually got side tracked since I had placed this post and never got to try your process.

I have currently setup 4 tasks that are full backups. Each task goes to a different folder (week1, week2, week3, week4).

However I am trying to figure out how to schedule the incrementals. You said you have four incremental daily tasks, one for each subdirectory. I started creating the incrementals, but I am having difficult determining what settings to use to get them to do the incrementals only on the days between the full images.

I'm sorry for being so thickheaded here, but I must have a brain block going on here.

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi myitanalyst,

You simply schedule the incrementals to run daily. All four of these will only differ in that the target subdirectories will be different. You could set the times of each incremental to be (say) 15 mins apart so they don't overlap, but that does not really matter as ATI will queue schedules tasks starting at the same time.

To avoid getting an incremental on the same day as that the full runs, make sure that the incrementals run at a slightly earlier time than the full in each subdirectory.

F.

 

Oh... ok... so you are running incrementals 4 times in one day so that all 4 weeks or folders are getting incremental. I was trying to figure out how to isolate one task to only run during week1, then week2, then week3, and so on. I hate the idea that it has to run 4 times in a row every night... seems like a waste, but since the scheduling is limited perhaps there is no way around this.

I must say their scheduling options is lacking what is needed...

Thanks again.

 

re: "You don't need to worry about deleting them because the next incrementals will overwrite them. TI recognises which incrementals belong to the most recent base image and which ones are orphaned."

I never relialized this little fact with TI! I always deleted things by hand once a month or so and then let my scheduled incremental create a new full. Anyway this is good to know. Do you know if this is true with TI 8 as well? Thanks.

 

Hi jsl,

yes.

F.