Shortening backup windows

A key consideration of any backup strategy is determining your backup window, which is the amount of time that your system can be unavailable to users while you perform your backup operations. By reducing the amount of time it takes to complete your backups, you can also reduce the amount of time your system is unavailable.

The challenge is to back everything up in the window of time that you have. To lessen the impact the backup window has on availability, you can reduce the amount of time a backup takes using one or more of the following techniques.

Improved tape technologies

Faster and denser tape technologies can reduce the total backup time. See Storage solutions for more information.

Parallel saves

Using multiple tape devices concurrently can reduce backup time by effectively multiplying the performance of a single device. See Saving to multiple devices to reduce your save window for more details on reducing your backup window.

Saving to nonremovable media

Saving to nonremovable media is faster than removable media. For example, directly saving to a disk unit can reduce the backup window. Data can be migrated to removable media at a later time. Saving from a detached mirror copy or flash copy, can also reduce the backup window. See Virtual tape media for more information.