Backup help

[John]

I'm planning to make a backup routine for an application. My idea is as
follows:

1. Make a backup of the whole application once a day.

2. Keep those backups saved for 3 months.

3. When the fourth month starts, delete all backups from the first month,
except the one from the first day of that month.

4. When the fourth year starts, delete all backups from the first year.

Is that a good strategy?

Thanks in advance,
John

 

[Pat Hartman]

That is good except that you are not really keeping three months/years of
backups because on the first day of the fourth month/year, you are deleting
the first month/year which brings you back to two months/years at that time.
So if you are going to purge an entire period at a time, you need to keep
four months/years before purging. That way you will always have three full
months/years.

 

[Fred]

John,

If what you are trying to do is have some older snapshots without having
zillions of backups, do what we do. Have 2 or 3 routines running: e.g.

Daily backup that wipes out any over 1 month old.

Weekly backup that wipes out any that are more than 12 months old

Yearly backup that wipes out any that are over 5 years old.

There are scripts that automate all of this except the triggerring, and
schedulers that can do the triggerring.

Shorten the delete cycles to reduce storage requirements.

Sincerely

Fred,

 

[Jerry Whittle]

Check out the following link. The Tower of Hanoi scheme might make your brain
explode. ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_rotation_scheme

 

[John]

Thanks all for useful replys!
John