The Locations tab of the Backup Policy wizard allows you to specify the backup location for each operation you include in the backup policy.
What information is on the Locations tab?
For each operation you have included in the backup policy, you can specify the location type, full path in which to store the backup file, an optional housecleaning schedule for existing disk archives, and the backup file extension.
What do you do on the Locations tab?
For a disk backup, browse for or enter the directory in which to store the backup file. You can use the supplied macros in the way best suited to your storage needs. If you want to limit the lifetime of your backup sets created by the policy, you can select the option that removes files older than the specified time.
For a TSM backup, browse for or enter the high level directory for the tape file. You can use the supplied macros in the way best suited to your storage needs. Browse for or enter the location of the TSM configuration file.
What do you do if you don´t have an existing archive?
If you do not specify an existing archive, SQLsafe creates a new backup set with the name you specify. The location entered for each backup type must be valid for all SQL Server instances.You can choose to Append or Overwrite if the archive already exists.
What types of backup locations can you use?
SQLsafe supports the following location types:
- Back up to a single file on the local computer or a network share
- Back up to multiple striped files on the local computer or a network share
- Back up to tape using Tivoli Storage Manager
Can you change the default file locations?
SQLsafe automatically populates the path using several available variables, depending on location type. You can modify this path to suit your needs, taking advantage of all the available variables.
How do you keep my backups running despite network errors?
Select Enable network resiliency and then click Configure to change the default settings. By default, SQLsafe will retry the backup operation every 10 seconds and then fail after 5 minutes (300 seconds) of continuous errors. Also, over the course of the operation, SQLsafe allows a total of 60 minutes in which to retry the backup before stopping the operation.
This option is not available when backing up to tape using Tivoli Storage Manager.
How do you mirror the backups this policy creates?
Click Mirror Archives, and then specify where you want the mirrored files to be stored.
For each mirror, SQLsafe creates a copy of the backup archive set. You can specify up to 2 mirrors for each backup operation.
Note
Keep in mind that creating mirrors can impact the performance of your backup operation.
If you want to stop the backup operation when mirror location is unavailable, select Abort backup if a mirror location reports a failure.
You can also enable to remove files older than a specified time.
What do I specify when backing up to a TSM Server?
When a TSM location is selected, you must specify the following settings:
- high level file path
- low level file path
- the location of the TSM Client configuration file that enables generate password for authorization
You can also configure SQLsafe to mark these files as inactive after a specified age.
Warning
SQL virtual database is not available when backing up to a TSM Server.
What does removing old files do?
For backups written to a single file or mirrored files, you can choose to remove old files to prevent disk space limitations. When you select to remove files older than the specified time, backup files created with names of the same format will be deleted from that directory. You can configure SQLsafe to delete old backup files from the primary archive as well as from your mirror archives.
For backups written to a TSM Server, you can configure SQLsafe to mark these files as inactive after a specified age.