106 - How to configure machine roll-ups and retention

If you backup machines regularly, roll-ups offer a way of saving space by retaining only the last backup of a month as a consolidation of all the successful backups for that month. Configuring these roll-ups and their retention is a key component of managing your backups. This configuration can be done from either the RedApp or the Storage Platform Console.

Note:

• Roll-ups will only be done for machine accounts that have backed up within the last month. In cases where no backups have been performed for over a month, roll-ups will resume after the first successful backup.
• If you have multiple machine backup sets configured, please note that each backup of a specific backup set will affect the roll-up schedule.

Page contents

• Configuring machine retention in the RedApp
• Configuring machine retention in the Storage Platform Console
• Recovery options based on retention

Configuring machine retention in the RedApp

Roll-ups can be configured in the RedApp by editing the settings for the relevant folder.

Summary of settings

The first option Perform a roll-up at the end of every calendar month is selected by default, but you can change the roll-up schedule by selecting the second option (Always keep...) and entering new values in the fields.

Note: If you set the number of backups to always keep to 0, no backups will be retained after a roll-up occurs. Therefore, when the first backup after a roll-up occurs, there will not be an index file to patch against. A warning indicating this will be displayed in the logs and a full index will be requested.

Roll-up retention

To specify the number of roll-ups to retain:

1. Ensure that Keep x roll-ups online is selected. If you select Keep all roll-ups online, you will eventually run out of disk space on our Storage Platform.
2. Enter the desired number in the field.
3. Ensure that the roll-up schedule and retention values are correct by reviewing the Roll-up Summary at the bottom.
4. When you're ready, click Save at the top right.

Configuring machine retention in the Storage Platform Console

Roll-ups can be configured in the Storage Platform Console under Configure Group > Roll-ups or Configure Collection > Roll-ups.

Roll-up schedule

The first option Perform a roll-up at the end of every calendar month is selected by default, but you can change the roll-up schedule by selecting the second option (Always keep...) and entering new values in the fields.

Note: If you set the number of backups to always keep to 0, no backups will be retained after a roll-up occurs. Therefore, when the first backup after a roll-up occurs, there will not be an index file to patch against. A warning indicating this will be displayed in the logs and a full index will be requested.

Roll-up retention

To specify the number of roll-ups to retain:

1. Ensure that Keep x roll-ups online is selected. If you select Keep all roll-ups online, you will eventually run out of disk space on our Storage Platform.
2. Enter the desired number in the field.
3. Ensure that the roll-up schedule and retention values are correct by reviewing the Roll-up Summary at the bottom.
4. When you're ready, click OK.

Note: NEVER delete any files, including roll-ups, from the Storage Platform’s StorageVolume folders. The Storage Platform will automatically do maintenance on these folders when needed. Manually deleting files will lead to data loss.

Advanced options in the Storage Platform Console

By clicking Show Advanced Options, you can set the following:

• Hierarchical Storage Management

Selecting Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) will enable HSM for the Group. With HSM enabled, all Accounts belonging to the Group will automatically archive any roll-ups that are older than the latest roll-up kept online into the directory specified on the StorageServer’s HSM tab.

Note: To enable HSM at Group level, HSM must be enabled on the relevant StorageServer. For more information, see Article 1110.

• Backup References

With Backup References enabled, you can view a list of backed-up items that were archived from the Storage Platform to the specified HSM directory on the Restore tab. All archived folders are displayed with greyed-out folder icons and you can browse through the available backup dates.

Note: These files cannot be restored until the data is moved back to the applicable folder on the Storage Platform by a backup administrator.

• MirrorServer Roll-up retention

As with StorageServers, you can specify the number of roll-ups to keep in the MirrorServer.

Recovery options based on retention

Let's look at some machine recovery scenarios if you have set retention your retention to 84 roll-ups (7 years).

If you need to recover on 30 September, for example, you will be able to:

• recover any backup made between 1 and 29 September, or
• recover the roll-up (consolidated month-end backup) from any month in the previous 83 months,

but you will not be able to restore anything from more than 83 months before.