Assigning a Safeguarded policy

A Safeguarded policy is a set of rules that controls the creation, retention, and expiration of Safeguarded backups of source volumes. The management GUI supports displaying both predefined and user-defined Safeguarded policies. However, the management GUI does not support creating user-defined Safeguarded policies, but you can use the mksafeguardedpolicy command to create user-defined policies.

IBM Copy Services Manager uses a Safeguarded policy to configure FlashCopy mapping and consistency groups automatically to create backup copies. When Safeguarded backups are created, IBM Copy Services Manager uses the retention time for the Safeguarded backups based on the settings in the Safeguarded policy. After copies expire, the IBM Spectrum Virtualize software deletes the expired copies from the Safeguarded backup location.

Using the management GUI

To assign a Safeguarded policy to a volume group, complete these steps:

In the management GUI, select Volumes > Volumes Groups.
Select the volume group that you want to assign a predefined policy to and select Group Actions > Assign Safeguarded policy.
Select one of the following predefined Safeguarded policies:

Predefinedsgpolicy0

Select this policy for the most frequent copies and retention. For this policy, Safeguarded backup copies are created daily and retained for a week. Use this policy for volume data that requires the highest recovery point objective (RPO). For example, volume data that is frequently updated and critical to your business can benefit from frequent copies and retention. Customer accounts, orders, or proprietary information are examples of data that can need more frequent backups. For more information, refer to your organization's business continuity plan.

Predefinedsgpolicy1

Select this policy for less frequent copies and medium retention. For this policy, Safeguarded backups are created weekly and retained for a month. Use this policy for application data that is updated frequently and requires a high RPO, but might not contain business-critical data.

Predefinedsgpolicy2

Select this policy for less frequent copies and longer retention.. For this policy, Safeguarded backup copies are created monthly and retained for a year. Use this policy for older data that is not updated frequently but still requires retention, such past customer accounts or employee records.

Note: These predefined policies cannot be changed or deleted. However, you can use the mksafeguardedpolicy command to create user-defined Safeguarded policies. If you create user-defined Safeguarded policies, IDs start after the predefined policies. The system supports a maximum of 32 Safeguarded policies with 3 predefined policies and 29 user-defined policies. If you create user-defined Safeguarded policies in the command-line interface, you can view and select these policies within the management GUI. Neither interface supports changes to predefined Safeguarded policies.
Select a date and time when you want IBM Copy Services Manager to start creating Safeguarded backups that use the policy. IBM Copy Services Manager queries the system every 5 minutes to process existing Safeguarded policies. The start time that is defined in the Safeguarded policy must factor in the possible 5-minute delay. When IBM Copy Services Manager detects a new Safeguarded policy for a volume group, it creates the session and scheduled task to create and manage the Safeguarded backups. IBM Copy Services Manager starts Safeguarded backup copies based on the start time and the copy interval that is defined in the Safeguarded backup policy. If the start time occurs before IBM Copy Services Manager has detected the policy, the Safeguarded backup is initiated based on the copy interval set in the Safeguarded policy and not at the start time.
Click Assign.

After the Safeguarded policy is assigned to the volume group, the status of the volume group displays Safeguarded-scheduled. This status indicates that the policy is assigned but the actual Safeguarded backups have not started.

When Safeguarded backups are stored on the Safeguarded backup location, the status of volume group displays Safeguarded.

Using the command-line interface (CLI)

To assign a Safeguarded policy to a volume group, complete these steps:

To create a new Safeguarded policy that can later be associated with volume groups, enter the following command.
```
mksafeguardedpolicy -name
 safeguarded_policy_name -backupunit minute | hour | day | week | month -backupinterval interval_value -backupstarttime start_time -retentiondays num_days
```
where safeguarded_policy_name indicates the name for the Safeguarded backup policy and it is optional. The minute | hour | day | week | month specifies the unit of time of the backup interval. The interval_value indicates the unit of time of backup_interval. The start_time indicates the time when the Safeguarded backups are started. The num_days indicates the number of days to keep the Safeguarded backups.
To change the volume group properties and assigns a Safeguarded policy to the volume group, enter the following command.
```
chvolumegroup -safeguardedpolicy xxxx
```