•When is the lowest system usage and user activity?

Typically, this is at night and most backups are scheduled to run during the night. Data Protector can generate reports about devices used for backup.

•What kind of data do you have and how often do you want to schedule backups of this data?

Data that changes often and is important to the company, such as user files, transactions, and databases must be backed up regularly. System-specific data, such as program files that do not change often, do not need to be backed up so often.

•How much do you want to simplify restore?

Depending on how you schedule your full and incremental backups, you will need media from the full and incremental backups to restore the latest version of files. This may take longer or even require manual media handling if you do not have an automatic library device.

•How much data do you need to back up?

Full backups take longer than incremental backups. Backups must typically be done in a limited time-frame.

•How many media are required?

Define a media rotation policy. See “Implementing a media rotation

policy” on page 143. This will show if you can keep enough media inside the planned library to operate for the desired period without having to handle media manually.

•What about mount prompt handling?

Consider whether to use one or several libraries. This enables automatic operation, since Data Protector can have access to all or most of the media, hence significantly reducing the need to manually handle media. If the data volume is too large for a library, then consider using more libraries. or more information, see “Large libraries” on page 162.

•How do I handle unavailable devices?

Use dynamic load balancing or device chaining, and provide several devices when creating a backup specification. This way you avoid the failure of a backup if a device is not turned on or the system to which the device is connected is not functioning.

•How long can a backup of all data take?

Since backups must finish during a period of low network usage and when users do not use their systems, consider scheduling backups appropriately to distribute the network load caused by the backups, and to maximize the efficiency of backup sessions. This may require using the staggered approach.

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