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Calculating Retention Policy

Hi All,

I am using the default retention policy but not the default hourly snapshot interval. I am wondering if I should make some adjustments to maximize my repository. It has currently filled to about half and holding steady.

I have been staring at the if/and/or boolean logic statements in regards to holding snapshots for hours, days, weeks, months and the pretty colored bar graph at the bottom but honestly still can't really make any intelligent decisions on what to change. Is there any easy rule of thumb or calculator to help with this?

Thanks

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  • Hi laytonj:
    scachman makes some valuable points (had to deal these real life issues quite a few times when working with various customers).
    I would like to add to the conversation a few points of my own:
    1. The most available recovery points are located during the first few backup days (All recovery points + 1 recovery point per hour). The number of recovery points is decreasing dramatically when you get to 1 per day/week/month. As such, you may get to save space if you increase the interval between snapshots recovery points and reduce the time most recovery points are kept. The best approach is to discuss with stakeholders the relative importance of each backed up machine, divide the protected machines in groups that would be protected at the same intervals and apply similar schedules to each group. Although labor intensive this approach is the way to go as it raises awareness about what is available to users so they do not feel blindsided in their recovery expectations.
    2. If repository size permits, taking base images of critical machines (i.e. on Accounting data after the month is closed) will give you an extra safety cushion.
    3. If you have multiple cores, it makes sense to check if you can afford to buy a DR appliance and use it as secondary storage for all cores. It makes sense to keep only the recovery points that may be needed for immediate restores (in most cases about a week worth, i.e. to address files deleted by mistake or ransomware infection) and move the recovery points for longer storage on the DR Appliance. As mentioned all cores connect to the same DR appliance. BTW, DR appliances are able to replicate to other DRs without the help of RapidRecovery Cores so, if you get to have 2 DR appliances, you may have a replication alternative.

    Hope that this helps.

Reply
  • Hi laytonj:
    scachman makes some valuable points (had to deal these real life issues quite a few times when working with various customers).
    I would like to add to the conversation a few points of my own:
    1. The most available recovery points are located during the first few backup days (All recovery points + 1 recovery point per hour). The number of recovery points is decreasing dramatically when you get to 1 per day/week/month. As such, you may get to save space if you increase the interval between snapshots recovery points and reduce the time most recovery points are kept. The best approach is to discuss with stakeholders the relative importance of each backed up machine, divide the protected machines in groups that would be protected at the same intervals and apply similar schedules to each group. Although labor intensive this approach is the way to go as it raises awareness about what is available to users so they do not feel blindsided in their recovery expectations.
    2. If repository size permits, taking base images of critical machines (i.e. on Accounting data after the month is closed) will give you an extra safety cushion.
    3. If you have multiple cores, it makes sense to check if you can afford to buy a DR appliance and use it as secondary storage for all cores. It makes sense to keep only the recovery points that may be needed for immediate restores (in most cases about a week worth, i.e. to address files deleted by mistake or ransomware infection) and move the recovery points for longer storage on the DR Appliance. As mentioned all cores connect to the same DR appliance. BTW, DR appliances are able to replicate to other DRs without the help of RapidRecovery Cores so, if you get to have 2 DR appliances, you may have a replication alternative.

    Hope that this helps.

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