Data Aging - SAP for Oracle iDataAgent

Table of Contents

Getting Started

Extended Retention Rules

When are Log Backups Aged Along with Full Backups

Selective Online Full Backup Retention Rules

Command Line Retention Rules

Data Aging Rules for Jobs Completed with Errors

Data Aging Rules for Jobs Completed with Warning

Getting Started

Data Aging is the process of removing old data from secondary storage to allow the associated media to be reused for future backups.

By default, all backup data is retained infinitely. However, you should change the retention of your data based on your needs. Note that if you continue to have infinite retention, you will also need infinite storage capacity.

1. From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies.
2. Highlight the Storage Policy.
3. From the right pane, right-click the Storage Policy Copy and click the Properties.
4.
  • Click the Retention tab.
  • Click the Retain For in the Basic Retention Rules for All Backups area.
  • Enter number of days to retain the data.
  • Enter number of cycles to retain the data.
  • Click OK.
5.

From the CommCell Browser, click the Reports icon.
6. Expand Reports and select Data Retention Forecast and Compliance.
7. Click Run.
8. The report will display the data to be pruned when a data aging job is run.
To ensure only data intended for aging is actually aged, it is important to identify the data that will be aged based on the retention rules you have configured. Hence, ensure this report includes only the data you intend to age.

If necessary, fine-tune your rules so that only the intended data is aged.

Once you run a data aging job, the data will be lost.
9. From the CommCell Console, right click the CommServe icon and click All Tasks | Data Aging.
10. Select Immediate in the Job Initiation section and click OK.
11. You can track the progress of the job from the Job Controller window. When the job has completed, the Job Controller displays Completed.

Make sure that the job completes successfully. If the job did not complete successfully, re-run the job.

Extended Retention Rules

Extended retention rules allow you to keep specific full (or synthetic full) backups for longer periods of time.

Extended retention rules can be used in the following circumstances:

In all other cases, it is recommended that the Auxiliary Copy feature be used for extended storage as it actually creates another physical copy of the data, thereby reducing the risk of data loss due to media failure.

Understanding Extended Retention Rules

Extended retention allows you to retain a specific full (or synthetic full) backup for an additional period of time. For example, you may want to retain your monthly full backups for 90 days.

Extended retention rules allow you to define three additional "extended" retention periods for full (or synthetic full) backups. For example:

A backup job will be selected for extended retention based on its start time. For example: If a backup job starts at 11:55 pm on August 31st and ends at 1 am on September 1st, then it will be selected as the last full backup for the month of August and will be picked up for extended retention.

Setting Up Extended Retention Rules

Use the following steps for setting up the extended retention rules:
  1. Right-click the storage policy copy and click Properties.
  2. Click the Retention tab.
  3. Set the basic retention rules by clicking Retain for and entering the number of days and cycles appropriate for your organization.
  4. Set the extended retention rules as follows:

    Click the For button.

    Enter the number of Days Total to retain the backup.

    Click the Keep drop-down list, and select the desired backup criteria (e.g., Monthly Full).

    Click the Grace Days drop-down list and select the number of days (e.g., 2).
  5. Repeat Step 4 to configure additional extended retention.
  6. Click OK.

When are Log Backups Aged Along with Full Backups

Log Backups (transaction, archive, or logical logs) are not considered part of the backup cycle. Therefore, storage policy cycle retention parameters do not apply to them. However, log backups may be linked to data backup operations depending on how the backups are performed. The following table helps to determine if log backups are linked to full backups:

Backup scenarios Are Log and full backups linked? Retention rules
Log backups and full backups (data only or data and logs) are running at the same time

 

 Yes Log backups and full backups follow the standard data aging rules.
A full backup is performed including data only Yes, the next log backup job will be linked Linked log backups are not aged until the linked data is aged. In addition, the following is also considered:
  • Logs that need to be copied to secondary copies will not be aged both on primary and non-primary source copy
  • Logs that exist only on one copy will be aged when they are older than the oldest data
  • Logs that exist on multiple copies will be aged according to copy retention days
  • Logs that exist on multiple copies with the longest retention days will be aged when they are older than the oldest data
  • Partial, disabled logs will be aged when they are older than the oldest data
A full backup is performed including data and log phases No, the next log backup will not be linked Unlinked log backups follow the data aging rules for log backups. If you want such log backups to be aged according to the defined days retention rule for the data, you can do so as follows:
  1. From the CommCell Browser, select Tools | Control Panel.
  2. Double-click Media Management
  3. Click the Data Aging tab.
  4. Enable the Prune All Database Agent Logs Only By Days Retention Rule option.
  5. Click OK.

Selective Online Full Backup Retention Rules

Retention rules can be set for archive log backups and data for long term archiving purposes. This can be achieved by enabling Selective Online full backup. The advantage of this type of backup is that both data and logs use the same storage policy. During a disaster recovery situation it becomes easier to locate different offsite media from various jobs to gather the necessary data and logs to recover the database. Follow the steps given below to selective online full backups of the Oracle database:

  1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the instance for which you want to create a new subclient, click All Tasks and then click New Subclient.
  2. From the General tab, type the name (up to 32 characters) of the subclient that you want to create.
  3. From the Content tab, define the contents of the subclient.
  4. Click Selective Online Full.
  5. From the Storage Device tab, select a storage policy to associate with this subclient.
  6. Select one of the following SAP interfaces:

    util_file

    util_file_online

  7. Click OK.

Command Line Retention Rules

Command line log backups can be linked to third-party data backups as well as any other kind of backup data as per the regular data link rule.

Retention cycles are not used for copies involved in operations from the command line. For such operations, data is aged according to the associated retention time. However, you can manually set the retention time for each command line job from the storage policy copy. The command line log backups will be aged according to the retention time set for its associated command line data backup job.

Data Aging Rules for Jobs Completed with Errors

Jobs that are completed with errors are not treated as a valid full backup job and hence are pruned based on basic retention rules. However, in case if you require to apply extended retention rules to these jobs, you can exclude jobs that completed with errors during extended retention calculations. Note that this option is applicable only for SAP for Oracle Selective Online full backup jobs.

  1. From the CommCell Browser, select Tools | Control Panel.
  2. Double-click Media Management
  3. Click the Data Aging tab.
  4. Change the value for the Ignore Completed With Errors job option for Extended Retention calculations option from 1 to 0.
  5. Click OK.

Data Aging Rules for Jobs Completed with Warnings

For jobs that are completed with warning are treated as regular full backup jobs and utilize the same data aging rules defined for regular full jobs.

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Advanced Topics

Data Aging - Advanced

Provides comprehensive information on additional Data Aging capabilities.