RE: restoring from backup tapes

["Andrea Peterson" <Andrea.Peterson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

For those of you wishing you could do backups over the weekend when your
server is off site, I thought I'd share our method of getting backups
over the weekend.  Our server is also stored at a different site, and
the technicians don't work weekends, so we do the following:

  - Full backups Tuesday - Friday early mornings 

  - Daily backup Friday after we close (catches Friday's data)

  - Full backup Sunday morning (catches Saturday's data) --This is
initialized and set to run after the Friday daily backup is done

  - Daily backup Monday morning (catches Sunday's data)

The technicians do work Friday evenings, which allows us to do the daily
backup after we close on Friday.. 

Andrea Peterson
Head of Library Systems
Western Washington University Libraries
516 High  St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-9103
(360) 650-3894 Phone
(360) 650-3954 Fax
andrea.peterson@xxxxxxxxxx





-----Original Message-----
From: David Ruml [mailto:David.Ruml@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 12:38 PM
To: IUG INNOPAC List
Subject: RE: restoring from backup tapes


We also backup Monday to Friday, and would also like to backup on the
weekends.  But our server is down at City Hall, so the I.T. people are
in charge of changing the tapes, and they don't work on weekends.  We've
been lucky so far, I guess.

We use two weeks of backup tapes, if I'm not mistaken.

DAVID E. RUML
Cataloging & Systems
Carrollton Public Library
4220 N. Josey Lane
CARROLLTON, TEXAS  75010

david.ruml@xxxxxxxxxx
www.cityofcarrollton.com/library


-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:innopac-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of lmueller@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 2:26 PM
To: IUG INNOPAC List
Subject: Re: restoring from backup tapes


I always look at backups like insurance.  You hope to never need it and
are glad to have it when you need it.  We have a 30 day rotation  on our
tapes.  We do a full backup Monday - Friday.  We would rather have a
daily backup for everyday but with the way III implemented this, we are
unable to verify tapes on the weekend or load tapes for initialization
(don't get me started on this ).

Anyway, you need to make sure you are covered in the event you need to
recover a valuable piece of information.  If you can do this by rotating
a week's worth of tapes and are willing to accept the risk, then go
ahead.  I would rather error on the side of too cautious than not
cautious enough.  As an academic as well as a city agency, we have
policies we have to adhere to so tapes are not object and we will use,
reuse, and buy what we need to be in compliance.

Just my 2 cents.  Good luck

Lori Mueller
Director of Student IT Systems Services
City Colleges of Chicago
312-553-3381 (w)
312-933-2918 (mobile)

----- Original Message -----
From: Sue Boggs <boggs@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, February 23, 2004 1:51 pm
Subject: restoring from backup tapes

> Hi,
> 
> While dealing once again with a backup device gone bad my new 
> library 
> director asked me a question that gave me pause. We currently use 
> a 21 tape 
> rotation, three sets of seven tapes so we have essentially three 
> weeks of 
> full backups. She asked me why we had so many (since it looks like 
> we need 
> to buy new tapes since the drive Innovative sent us takes 
> different tapes 
> then we had been using) and the best answer I had was the lame 
> "because 
> we've always done it that way".
> 
> The more I thought about it, the less I could justify this set-up 
> from a 
> data stand point anyway. There is always the argument of how often 
> the tape 
> gets used and how long it lasts but putting that aside will we 
> ever need 
> more than one week's worth of backups? For shared network files it 
> makes 
> sense, since the occasion might happen (and has to me) that 
> someone 
> realizes an error was made in an Excel spreadsheet two weeks ago 
> and has 
> been compounded ever since, so they'd like to backup the version 
> from two 
> Tuesdays ago and start again from there. I think this was the 
> background 
> and training of the systems librarian who first set up our system 
> in 1992.
> 
> But is there an equivalent situation where we'd want to do that 
> with our 
> Innopac? The only thing I can remotely see is some financial 
> situation (say 
> to go back and re-set just one fund balance that got messed up) 
> but is it 
> even possible to restore just some data? Are these backups an all 
> or 
> nothing source if the computer totally crashes and nothing more? 
> In that 
> case we'd only want the most recent full backup (assuming you do a 
> full 
> backup every day as we do) and keep a few days worth just in case 
> the 
> latest tape turns out to be bad when you go to do the restore. The 
> few 
> posts in the archives on restoring seemed to cover full restores 
> from a 
> hard-drive crash but not any partial restores.
> 
> So for the moment setting aside arguments of tape life and being 
> able to 
> rotate tapes off site, does anyone have thoughts on why we would 
> need more 
> than one week's worth of tapes?
> 
> Sue
> 
> Sue Boggs
> Cataloging & Library Technician
> Technical Services
> 
> Library
> University of Puget Sound
> 1500 N. Warner St. #1021
> Tacoma, WA 98416-1021
> 
> (253) 879-2667
> boggs@xxxxxxxxxx
> 
> 
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