Planning for policies
Policy configuration is flexible enough to meet the various needs of all the clients in a NetBackup environment. To take advantage of this flexibility, take time to plan before starting to configure the policies in the Policies utility.
The following table outlines the steps to take to ensure that you get optimal results from your policy configurations.
Table: Steps for planning policies
| Step | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
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Step 1 |
Gather client information |
Gather the following information about each client:
One client may be a file server that contains a large amount of data while the other clients are workstations. To avoid long backup times, include the file server in one policy and the workstations in another policy. It may be beneficial to create more than one policy for the file server. |
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Step 2 |
Group the clients based on backup requirements |
Divide the clients into groups according to the different backup and archive requirements. The groups can be based on the type of work that the clients perform. Clients that are used for similar tasks generally have similar backup requirements. For example, most clients in an engineering department create the same types of files at similar levels of importance. In some instances, create a single policy for each group of clients. In other cases, subdivide the clients and include them in the separate policies that are based on their backup requirements. A backup policy can apply to one or more clients. Every client must be in at least one backup policy so that it can be backed up. |
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Step 3 |
Consider the storage requirements |
The NetBackup environment may have some special storage requirements that the backup policies must accommodate. The storage unit and volume pool settings apply to all the files that are backed up by a policy. If files have special storage requirements, create separate policies for the files, even if other factors are the same, such as schedules. If it is necessary to keep backups for some files on separate media, create a policy that specifies a unique volume pool for those backups. Then, add the media for that volume pool. |
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Step 4 |
Consider the backup schedule |
Create additional backup policies if the schedules in one policy do not accommodate all clients and files. Consider the following factors when deciding to create additional policies:
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Step 5 |
Group clients by common attributes |
Create separate policies for the clients that require similar policy attribute settings. See Policy attributes that affect how clients are grouped in policies. |
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Step 6 |
Maximize multiplexed backups |
Create separate policies as necessary to maximize the benefits of multiplexed backups. To maximize drive use, multiplex the slower clients that produce small backups. The higher-performance clients that produce long backups are likely to use drives fully and not benefit from multiplexing. |
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Step 7 |
Evaluate backup times |
Evaluate total backup times for each schedule and further subdivide policies to reduce backup times to an acceptable level. For example, if the backup of /usr, /h001, and /h002/projects on UNIX client1 takes too much time, create a new policy for /h002/projects. In addition to reducing the backup time for each policy, separate policies can reduce the total backup time for the server. NetBackup processes files within a backup selection list in the order they appear in the backup selection list. However, separate policies are processed in parallel if enough drives are available and the Maximum jobs per client host property is set to allow it. See Global Attributes properties. The Multiplexing and Allow multiple data streams policy attributes also allow backup policies to be processed in parallel. |