Considerations for Scheduling Backups

A backup schedule is the schedule that you establish to run the ufsdump command. This section identifies considerations to think about when you create a backup schedule. This section also includes sample backup schedules.

The backup schedule that you create depends on the following:

• Your need to minimize the number of tapes that are used for backups

• The time available for doing backups

• The time available for doing a full restore of a damaged file system

• The time available for retrieving individual files that are accidentally deleted

How Often Should You Do Backups?

If you do not need to minimize time requirements and the number of media that is used for backups, you can do full backups every day. However, this backup method is not realistic for most sites, so incremental backups are used most often. In this case, you should back up your site enough to so that you can restore files from the last four weeks. This schedule requires at least four sets of tapes, one set for each week. You would then reuse the tapes each month. In addition, you should archive the monthly backups for at least a year. Then, keep yearly backups for a number of years.

Backup Interval Terms and Definitions

The following table describes backup interval terms and definitions.