Veritas NetBackup™ Appliance Capacity Planning and Performance Tuning Guide
- About this Guide
- Section I. Capacity planning
- Analyzing your backup requirements
- Designing your backup system
- Section II. Best Practices
- Section III. Performance tuning
- Section IV. Quick reference to Capacity planning and Performance tuning
- Index
What is the retention period?
Now that you have identified what data to backup and how much data is to be backed up, you now need to identify the length of the retention period for your backup. Retention period is the time period during which data is stored and maintained in a backup system. Upon the completion of the retention period the retained data is finally disposed.
Table: Identifying the length of the retention period
Factors deciding the retention period | Additional comments |
|---|---|
What are the standards specific to your organizational for creating a retention policy? | Most organizations lay out specific guidelines on creating retention policies and the time period they would want to hold the backed-up data. These guidelines are considered vital in determining the retention policy for an organization. |
What is your Projects requirement to retain the data? | There can be certain critical projects that may require you to hold the data for a longer period of time than your standard retention policy. Identify such projects and the approximate time required to retain the information. This can help you prioritize and allot specific backup storage to projects with such retention period requirements. |
What are the user-specific requirements on retaining data? Are their users who want to retain specific data for a longer period? | There can be user requirements that may need you to alter the generic retention policy to accommodate requests to retain data backed up by specific users or user groups. |
What are the business requirements to identify the retention time? | There can be business-specific requirements that mandate you to hold specific data for a longer period. For example, market research, findings of a research and development department. |
What are the regulatory or legal department laid requirements to retain the data? | The legal departments or the regulatory bodies of a country may have specific guidelines on retaining data. For example, organizations may require to retain the financial data of their organization for over a specific number of years. Such polices affect the length of the retention period. |
What is the size of your NetBackup image database? | The retention period is directly proportional to the number of tapes you need and the size of your NetBackup image database. Your NetBackup image database keeps track of all the information on all your disk drives and tapes. The image database size is tightly tied into your retention period and the frequency of your backups. |