What Is a Backup Strategy?

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Solaris™ Operating Environment Boot Camp
By David Rhodes, Dominic Butler
Table of Contents
Chapter 22.  Backing Up and Restoring the System


Defining a backup strategy is one of the key tasks to be performed during the implementation of a new computer system. This task is often left until just before the system goes live and, in most cases, this is already too late. If the system has a 10 GB database, but only has a 2 GB tape drive installed, it is probably not going to be sufficient for the task. Likewise, if a system is going to be used for 20 hours a day, but takes 6 hours to perform a backup, a certain amount of ingenuity will be required to identify a workable solution. It is likely that a solution will be obtainable, but the earlier in the project this is done, the least likely it will impact the "go live" date.

A backup strategy needs to answer the following questions:

  • When will the backup be taken?

  • What mechanism will be used to take the backup?

  • How many tapes will be required?

  • How will they be labelled?

  • Who will be swapping tapes over?

  • Where will the tapes be stored?

  • How will we deal with requests, from users, to restore specific files?

  • How will we recover from an application/data failure?

  • How will we recover from an operating system failure?

  • How will we recover from a major disaster (such as an earthquake)?

The latter point is often not included in the backup strategy but is instead the subject of a disaster recovery strategy, as a true disaster will require more than just the recovery of the computer and its data. It is also likely to involve input from many other people in addition to the system administrator.

Unfortunately, there is no standard backup strategy so you will have to define your own. What we will do, however, is show different commands, provided by Solaris, that can be used to perform the backups defined in your strategy and recover lost files or data. It is also worth noting that, as well as the commands provided by Solaris, there are also many third-party backup products available. These can provide many useful features (such as the control of external tape libraries) and may provide the best solution if you have very specific backup requirements.


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    Solaris Operating Environment Boot Camp
    Solaris Operating Environment Boot Camp
    ISBN: 0130342874
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2002
    Pages: 301

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