CADD Standards Tape Backup

Tape Backup
CADD Standards • Version 1.0

Backups and Restores play an extremely large role in Operator's daily responsibilities. This page will explain Backups, touching on the various ways each may be performed. These procedures vary depending upon the system.

There are two different types of backups; A Daily backup is run each day for every system. This type of backup will only copy files that were modified within the last 24 hours, or since the last daily has been run.

A Full backup will copy all system files onto tape regardless of whether they were modified or not. These types of backups are performed on every system, once a week (Weeklies), once a month (Monthlies), once every six months (Semi-annuals) and once a year (Annuals).

The naming convention we use for all backup tapes is derived from a pattern we find useful. In order to explain this convention, we will take an example and follow through the steps to show you how to come up with the proper tape name. The example we will use is:

StarTrek1 Wednesday Daily1

Take the first three characters of the system name

STA

Then the number of the backup tape you are running. (In this case the backup tape is Daily1).

STA1

This should be followed by the the first two letters of the day (if daily) or week/month/year should it be a full..(i.e. week1 = w1, month8=m8).

STA1WE

So the tape name for the backup that runs StarTrek1 Wednesday Daily 1, will be STA1WE

Here are a few more examples of the rule:

Kirk Full 2 Week 3 = KIR2W3
MPI Full 1 Month 6 = MPI1M6
Alpha Full 4 Annual 95 = ALP4A95

The system should be setup up to run these backups unattended at a late hour in the evening (e.g. 11:00p.m.). The following needs to be done on your station and the server by the end of each day:

Delete all .BAK, .$??, and .TMP files.
Be sure to place the proper tape in the servers tape drive.