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Status Future consideration
Workspace Storage Protect Family
Categories Spectrum Protect (Server)
Created by Guest
Created on Feb 4, 2022

RELATED IDEAS

Tag/Label backup sessions as well as backup/archive records.

Because of the Spectrum Protect way to register the backups/archive, it is challenging to track the backups. 

For example, when customers lunch a multi-thread backup (DB, Files, Mail, VM), it is difficult to identify what kind of backup it is (full, incremental, differential).


Having SP tag/label the session and backup/archive records, we can quickly identify when was the last DB full backup.

I remember a customer's problem with its SAP-DB2 backup; its backup retention was 30 days, and the last full backup was 90 days ago.
I know that the customer should have more control over their backups, but SP doesn't have a way to look for this information quickly or any other way.


Having Tag/Label, we can identify all backup/archive records (logs files, data files, etc.) and the sessions that belong to a specific tag/label.

Example:

Query the Tag/Label that finishes with ORACLE-FULL will list all the backups Tags/Labels like for example:

TAG/LABEL    CLIENT_NAME
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1
2021-11-30_20:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_DEV


And if we want to know how the backup run, we can query the sessions that belong to the Tag/Label, for example:

TAG/LABEL    CLIENT_NAME    SESSION_ID    START_TIME    BYTES_RECEIVED    BYTES_SENT
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    20000122    2022-01-31_23:01:00.00     122,334,213.00      122,334,213.00 
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    20000123    2022-01-31_23:01:00.00     312,312,312.00      312,312,312.00 
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    20000125    2022-01-31_23:32:00.00     34,534,543.00      34,534,543.00 
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    20000126    2022-01-31_23:32:00.00     2,341,234.00      2,341,234.00 
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    20000140    2022-01-31_23:50:00.00     34,543,234.00      34,543,234.00 
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    20000150    2022-01-31_23:58:00.00     1,234,322,345.00      1,234,322,345.00 


And also, know the backup/archive records that belong to the specific Tag/Label, for example:

TAG/LABEL    NODE_NAME    FILESPACE_NAME    HL_NAME    LL_NAME
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    /oracle    /    backuppiece_24231
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    /oracle    /    backuppiece_24232
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    /oracle    /    backuppiece_24233
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    /oracle    /    backuppiece_24234
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    /oracle    /    backuppiece_24235
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_PROD1    /oracle    /    backuppiece_24236
2021-11-30_20:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    ORACLE_DEV    /oracle    /    backuppiece_24237


Also, know the status of the Tag/Label (Job)

TAG/LABEL    START_TIME    END_TIME    STATUS
2022-01-31_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    2022-01-31_23:01:00.00    2022-01-31_23:58:35.00    OK
2022-01-24_23:00:00.00_PROD1-ORACLE-FULL    2022-01-24_23:01:00.00    2022-01-31_23:33:15.00    ERROR


I don't know if this could be implemented as a variable inside the backup scrips, so every time a script runs, the same Tag/Label is used by all the sessions generated by the backup script.

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Mar 29, 2022

    I think this can also help with the data identification for retention set (holds) for workloads like Oracle, DB2 and maybe Informix.

    By identifying the Full+Log Job (label/tag) we could retain this job (tag/label) data for long-term retention.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Mar 19, 2022

    Hi,

    Indeed, we can use schedule names, but not all workloads work fine with that. But I had several problems invoking oracle, db2, or Informix scripts from schedules. Also, customers tend to like to execute scripts manually or through a 3rd party schedule/orchestration tools.

    So we lost tracking of these schedules/orchestrates or manual executions.

    Being able to Tag/Label opens to SP many management and reporting capabilities:

    • Front-End licensing reporting

    • Ransomware analytics

    • Identify servers at risks, like when was their last backup

    • Backup analytics trends (backup size, backup windows, capacity planning, data reduction) on every type of Job (ex: Oracle full backup)

    • Track all the types of jobs (ex: Files-Incr-daily, Oracle-Full-Weekly, Oracle-Archive-Daily) that a single server has.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Feb 8, 2022

    This request may not be delivered within the release currently under development, but the theme is aligned with the current multi-year strategy. IBM may consider and evaluate any RFE Community feedback for this request through activities such as voting. IBM will update this request in the future.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Feb 6, 2022

    Hi,
    Can't you monitor this by the schedued event name?
    You can also check the backup table, to see the name of the objects, but that might be a slower process: SELECT * FROM backups WHERE node_name='your-nodename'

    You can also send an event to the Spectrum Protect backup server, when you start and finish a backup.

    We use different schedule names for the different type of backups
    full/incremental/log/differential ...

    Otherways to back data is to send directly to SPFS, and in this way control how you name your objects
    SPFS - is a file system for IBM Spectrum Protect, where one can mount the Spectrum Protect storage as a mount point.
    All file operations that goes via the mountpoint translates into Spectrum Protect Client API calls.
    # mount -t spfs /backup

    The benefits is that it is possible to select the method one prefer to protect its data, and having the transactional data be protected almost immediately.

    https://www-50.ibm.com/partnerworld/gsd/solutiondetails.do?solution=56435&lc=en&stateCd=P&tab=2

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