Safeguarded backup policy

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A Safeguarded policy is a set of rules that controls the creation, retention, and expiration of Safeguarded backups of source volumes.

A Safeguarded policy is a logical object that is associated with a volume group that is configured with the backup, retention, and expiration time for the Safeguarded backup. A Safeguarded policy is configured with one schedule per policy. The policy is configured with the backup period (B) and the retention time (R). The retention time determines how long a Safeguarded backup is retained before the system deletes. For example, if the backup period is three hours and the retention is 30 days, then the policy is scheduled to run in every three hours for backup, and the stored backup would retain for 30 days. After 30 days, the backup is deleted.

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.

The predefined policies cannot be changed or deleted. The GUI has the following predefined Safeguarded policy.

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.

The system does not support any parameter change in a Safeguarded policy after creating a policy except the policy name. You can configure a policy to multiple volumes. An administrator can do the following additional actions on a Safeguarded policy on a command-line interface:

rmsafeguardedpolicy: The command deletes a Safeguarded policy. However, deleting a policy would also remove the policy from all the associated Safeguarded volume groups.
lssafeguardedpolicy: The command displays the number of volume groups that are associated with the Safeguarded backup policy.
chsafeguardedpolicy: The command renames a Safeguarded policy.