IDS Forum

RE: Archive retention

Posted By: Knox, Ernest
Date: Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:49 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Archive retention (Jonathan Leffler)

We may keep 3 days worth of backups for a warehouse system that can't
use data that far back. We may keep 1 week for customer ordering data
that may constantly change.

We may keep 1 month to 1-2 years for customer and contract orders. We
then keep up to 7 years for legal and Government requirements.

We keep a copy of every version of software that we use, when taking
backups. I have had to rebuild a server, instance, and restore 7.30 or
9.21 in the past, but not very often.

DBexports will be based on the dbschema at that time, which may change
over time. You will have to dump this frequently, compress it, and then
allow the server backup to manage it. How long will they keep the
server backups?

Thanks,
*******************************************************************
Ernie Knox
IT Database Administrator Specialist
Sears Holdings
3333 Beverly Rd., B4-266A
Hoffman Estates, IL. 60179
Office: (847) 286-5735
Email: Ernest.Knox@searshc.com
Blackberry: 2244650553@messaging.sprintpcs.com
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Informix or MySQL Primary: 9110210@skytel.com
Informix or MySQL Secondary: 7276872@skytel.com

" Yes we can make a Change! "
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"
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GSU
*******************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Leffler
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:36 AM
To: ids@iiug.org
Subject: Re: Archive retention [17976]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 07:31, MIKE MAGIE <jmmagie@yahoo.com> wrote:

> General question for the production dba's out there...
>
> How long do you retain your onbar backups?
>
> This stems from a somewhat funny discussion the other day where folks
were
> wanting to keep backups for SEVEN years - when I pointed out that in
seven
> years we would be at least a couple versions ahead of the one used to
> perform
> the oldest backup there was a collective "Ohhhhh yeahhhhh" in the
group. I
> suggested a retention period of no more than one year but am curious
to
> know
> what you all do?
>

There can be legal reasons why you need to preserve 7 years of backups.

If so, your backup strategy must be comprehensive enough to be able to
recover the system 7 years later. Usually, the old hardware will be
senile
or gone - but unless you've switched platforms, you can probably run the
old
stuff on the new platform, even 7 years later.

But, you will need 'the old stuff'. So, the archive strategy must
include
backups of the software that runs the DBMS as well as the data from the
database. You also need to ensure that your chunk device names can be
recreated sufficiently well - so you need to know what devices are
needed,
and how big they must be, and so on.

Consider whether you need to recover the entire O/S - or the tools on
the
O/S.

Also, for long-term backups across platforms and versions, it may be
sensible to create DB-Export style dumps of the data - you can recover
that
onto more recent versions of IDS.

However, in the absence of compelling legal reasons, a shorter retention

period is sensible, and 1-2 years is likely to be right. You still need
to
consider the backup of the relevant software.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com
Guardian of DBD::Informix v2008.0513 -- http://dbi.perl.org/
"Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to
be
amused."
NB: Please do not use this email for correspondence.
I don't necessarily read it every week, even.
Marie von
Ebner-Eschenbach<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marie_von_e
bnereschenbac.html>
- "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

--000e0cd216b2419c020477b74798

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Messages In This Thread

• Archive retention
  MIKE MAGIE -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 10:31 a.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Alexandre Marini -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 10:47 a.m.
    • Re: Archive retention
      MIKE MAGIE -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 10:54 a.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Madison Pruet -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 11:24 a.m.
  • RE: Archive retention
    Clifton Bean -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 11:26 a.m.
    • Re: RE: Archive retention
      MIKE MAGIE -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 12:35 p.m.
  • RE: Archive retention
    Jack Parker -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 12:59 p.m.
    • Re: Archive retention
      Andrew Clarke -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 5:53 p.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Andrew Clarke -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 5:46 p.m.
    • Re: Archive retention
      Art Kagel -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 6:01 p.m.
      • Re: Archive retention
        Andrew Clarke -- Thursday, 5 November 2009, at 6:33 p.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    Jonathan Leffler -- Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:36 p.m.
    • RE: Archive retention
      Knox, Ernest -- Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:49 p.m.
  • Re: Archive retention
    MIKE MAGIE -- Friday, 6 November 2009, at 12:45 p.m.

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