Backup Rotation Schedule Basics

Backup rotation schedule is an essential basis of the whole backup strategy especially concerning corporate data backup and recovery used by enterprises. It is widely known that having only one copy of important information is asking for trouble. You have to keep multiple copies and one of them in secure off-site storage. Backup schedule is usually using a combination of partial backups interspersed with full backups to reduce backup time and capacity usage.

Most known and simple partial backup method is differential backup which allows saving all data changes made since last full backup. Due to backup strategy it takes more storage capacity, but is much faster to restore backed up information if it is necessary. Incremental backup is a little bit more complicated method allows backing up changes made since last incremental backup instead of full. This method helps to reduce storage capacities used to keep backup files, but process of backed up data restoration is relatively slow.

Top backup rotation schedules used for tape backup are mostly Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) and Tower of Hanoi. GFS is based on using three sets or generations of tapes. Monthly full backup is grandfather, weekly full backup is father and a son set for partial everyday backups. Grandfather tapes are stored off-site while “younger” generations stay in backup rotation. Tower of Hanoi is based on mathematic puzzle of the same name and provides an ability to increase generations’ depth.

No matter which backup rotation schedule you will select according your corporate data backup strategy. The most important requirement is to have 24/7 access to your backups, though it is provided by every quality remote backup service.