Running a business, regardless of its size, requires planning. You need to develop a strategy and set goals, conduct market research, plan products or services, finances, operations, marketing, and sales, as well as human resources, legal compliance, risk management, and technology. One of the technological aspects that requires planning is data storage and backup. As a company closely associated with backup, we repeatedly emphasize what constitutes and what does not constitute backup, and how proper backup can help avoid significant financial losses. Let’s focus on what constitutes a proper backup schedule and how to effectively utilize the capabilities of
Open-E JovianDSS and its retention plans feature.
As we’ve already discussed in one of our previous articles, “How Do ZFS Snapshots Really Work”, Open-E JovianDSS has the ability to create snapshots and can also back them up on another data storage server. Moreover, there’s a possibility to set up a retention plan, which would allow you to create and remove snapshots automatically. This retention plan feature also allows you to set the entire backup process (an integral part of Open-E On- & Off-site Data Protection) according to a specific schedule.
What’s the Best Backup Schedule?
There are, however, several questions that people have been asking us regarding retention plans. Questions like, “How does a retention plan work?”, “What’s the best backup schedule?”, “How exactly does it add value to the data storage process?”, or ”What do these retention rules actually even mean?”. In this article, we will do our best to answer these questions, as well as concepts like:
- Retention plan intervals
- Retention periods
- Backup schedule configuration options
If you’re not familiar with the topic of snapshots, we recommend starting with the previously mentioned article from the Open-E blog, “How Do ZFS Snapshots Really Work?”, and then returning to this one afterwards.
Retention Plan Intervals in Backup Schedule
Intervals are the foundational element of any retention plan and a key part of defining your backup schedule. They determine how often snapshots of your system state are taken and transferred to the selected data storage destination. In the Open-E JovianDSS configuration menu, you can set intervals as frequently as once per minute, allowing for a highly customizable backup schedule. Choosing the right one depends on your business needs – including the criticality of your data, the frequency of data changes, the volume of updated information over time, and the acceptable level of data loss in the event of a disaster (for example, whether losing a few hours of data is tolerable). For maximum flexibility, multiple retention rules with different intervals can be configured, enabling tailored backup schedules for both production and backup servers.
Retention Periods in Backup Schedule
When it comes to actually deciding how long you’d like to keep the snapshots on the server, you have plenty of choices. Snapshots can be retained for as little as an hour up to as long as a couple of years, depending on the server’s size and usage (whether it’s a production server or an off-site backup). Moreover, the retention period can also be configured, just as with intervals, for the production system on-site and off-site backup servers individually.
On-site and Off-site Backup Retention Periods with Retention Rules
For instance, if you’d like to keep the data on the local server for only 30 minutes but want it on the off-site server for 3 years, this is completely doable. What would happen in this particular case is that, when the 30-minute retention period elapses on the local server, then the local snapshots are erased, but not before they are transferred over to the long-term off-site backup server (assuming the appropriate settings have been set). This means that you’ll still have the option to revert to your previous versions, should you want to, as they are stored on the off-site backup.
Backup Schedule Configuration Options
When deciding how long to keep snapshots on a server, your retention plans offer substantial flexibility. Just like intervals, the retention period can be customized individually for both on-site production servers and off-site backup servers, helping to create a consistent and effective backup schedule.
30-minute Backup Schedule
For example, keep snapshots on a local on-site backup server for only 30 minutes while retaining them on an off-site backup server for three years. In this setup, once the 30-minute retention period expires on the local server, snapshots are deleted only after they have been securely transferred to the long-term off-site backup server. This approach ensures that older data versions remain accessible according to your defined backup schedule, giving you the ability to restore previous data whenever necessary.
Keep in mind that the very first snapshot sent to the backup server must include the entire system data, which requires data storage capacity equivalent to the initial dataset.
This investment pays off over time, as all subsequent snapshots only save incremental changes. Thanks to this method, snapshots can be asynchronously replicated to local and/or remote locations according to your retention plan, helping to establish an efficient and reliable backup schedule. This setup allows you to configure more frequent intervals with shorter retention periods on the on-site server, while maintaining less frequent intervals with longer retention periods on the off-site backup server.
Lastly, do keep in mind that it’s essential to evaluate the data workflow of your enterprise, as well as your Business Continuity plan, before setting up your retention plan for the Open-E JovianDSS software solution.
Learn More About Backup & Beyond
If you want to know more about backup schedules, strategies, and methods, and get to know how to strengthen your data protection techniques, our “Beyond Backup: Understanding the Data Protection” guide is what you’re looking for:
