Backup Policies

To ensure a well running backup and recovery system, the technology involved represents at most 40% of the system. All the tape drives, virtual tape libraries, deduplication nodes, software and tiers will come to naught if adequate policies are not established to ensure the successful management of the environment.

The NetWorker Blog has a variety of articles on establishing best practice policies for ensuring that a backup environment functions as a backup system. With 300+ articles and constantly growing however, this page has been created to provide links to specific articles on backup policy guidelines. Here's direct links to these key articles:

• Zero Error Policies:
  • What is a Zero Error Policy? establishes the importance of establishing, and maintaining, a zero error policy - a governing principle to a backup system that does not idly tolerate errors, but requires each one to be investigated and eliminated. Without a zero error policy, no backup environment can truly be a backup system.
  • Following on from the above is Zero Error Policy Management, which explains how to best manage the implementation and ongoing operation of a zero error policy.
• Being a backup administrator is a highly important role, and so two articles outline the responsibilities of backup administrators, both ethical, and procedural.
• A common misconception is that backup isn't a production activity - or that backup servers aren't production servers. This article outlines the two types of production servers within an environment - primary production and production support.
• The article Media, CapEx and OpEx, outlines why it is very important to plan for media budget in a backup environment out of operational expenditure rather than capital expenditure.
• Following on from the above, Backups are not about being miserly is a comment on ensuring that the need to keep media costs down is intelligently weighed up against the amount of time it takes to reconstruct vs recover.
• Another common misconception is that backup is part of Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). In actual fact, it more properly belongs in a sister activity, Information Lifecycle Protection (ILP).
• Change control is frequently a hot topic; in Does your backup administrator have a say in change control?, the importance of keeping the backup administrator (or administration team) in the loop on change control activities.
• Things not to virtualise, explains why it would be foolish to virtualise a backup server.
• NetWorker vs Scratch Pools explains, particularly for those coming from other backup products, why the notion of scratch pools are an anathema to NetWorker.
• An article on directives and change control explains why directives should be treated with caution, and how they should be integrated into the change control process.
• Datazone security is discussed in your datazone is only as secure as your NetWorker server.