IDS Forum

Re: Archive retention

Posted By: Jonathan Leffler
Date: Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:36 p.m.

In Response To: Archive retention (MIKE MAGIE)

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 07:31, MIKE MAGIE <jmmagie@yahoo.com> wrote:

> General question for the production dba's out there...
>
> How long do you retain your onbar backups?
>
> This stems from a somewhat funny discussion the other day where folks were
> wanting to keep backups for SEVEN years - when I pointed out that in seven
> years we would be at least a couple versions ahead of the one used to
> perform
> the oldest backup there was a collective "Ohhhhh yeahhhhh" in the group. I
> suggested a retention period of no more than one year but am curious to
> know
> what you all do?
>

There can be legal reasons why you need to preserve 7 years of backups.

If so, your backup strategy must be comprehensive enough to be able to
recover the system 7 years later. Usually, the old hardware will be senile
or gone - but unless you've switched platforms, you can probably run the old
stuff on the new platform, even 7 years later.

But, you will need 'the old stuff'. So, the archive strategy must include
backups of the software that runs the DBMS as well as the data from the
database. You also need to ensure that your chunk device names can be
recreated sufficiently well - so you need to know what devices are needed,
and how big they must be, and so on.

Consider whether you need to recover the entire O/S - or the tools on the
O/S.

Also, for long-term backups across platforms and versions, it may be
sensible to create DB-Export style dumps of the data - you can recover that
onto more recent versions of IDS.

However, in the absence of compelling legal reasons, a shorter retention
period is sensible, and 1-2 years is likely to be right. You still need to
consider the backup of the relevant software.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com
Guardian of DBD::Informix v2008.0513 -- http://dbi.perl.org/
"Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be
amused."
NB: Please do not use this email for correspondence.
I don't necessarily read it every week, even.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marie_von_ebnereschenbac.html>
- "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

--000e0cd216b2419c020477b74798

Messages In This Thread

• Archive retention
  MIKE MAGIE -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 10:31 a.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Alexandre Marini -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 10:47 a.m.
    • Re: Archive retention
      MIKE MAGIE -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 10:54 a.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Madison Pruet -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 11:24 a.m.
  • RE: Archive retention
    Clifton Bean -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 11:26 a.m.
    • Re: RE: Archive retention
      MIKE MAGIE -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 12:35 p.m.
  • RE: Archive retention
    Jack Parker -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 12:59 p.m.
    • Re: Archive retention
      Andrew Clarke -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 5:53 p.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Andrew Clarke -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 5:46 p.m.
    • Re: Archive retention
      Art Kagel -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 6:01 p.m.
      • Re: Archive retention
        Andrew Clarke -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 6:33 p.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Jonathan Leffler -- Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:36 p.m.
    • RE: Archive retention
      Knox, Ernest -- Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:49 p.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    MIKE MAGIE -- Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:45 p.m.

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