Avamar: ADMe backup selection criteria

Backup Selection Issues

The default date range in ADMe may not satisfy all situations, leading to incorrect filtering and selection of intended backups.

Users may experience difficulties in selecting the desired backup from a specific date range.

• Incorrect backup selection due to default date range limitations
• Difficulty in finding the wanted backup from a specific date range

These issues can result in unintended backups being selected, leading to potential data inconsistencies or losses.

Incorrect Filtering

The issue arises from incorrect filtering to select intended backups, which can lead to undesirable results.

• Inadequate date range specification
• Insufficient understanding of available backup selection options

ADMe Backup Selection Criteria Resolution

The following shows all possibilities on how to influence the search date range used by ADMe/ATO during its backup selection phase.

• By default, the start date used is always the first of your current month to your current day. For example, if today is 2014-09-15, the effective search range would be from 2014-09-01 to 2014-09-15.
• Syntax -sdate yyyy-mm-dd and -edate yyyy-mm-dd is used to specify an explicit start and end date range.
• Syntax -rmonth # is used to go back in time the specified number of months relative to your current month.
• Syntax -rmonthx # is used to go back in time the specified number of months relative to your current month but limits the date range to that month only.
• Syntax -rday # is used to specify either a single relative day or short range of days.
• Syntax -nday # is used to specify a fixed number of search days up to 30 which can cross a month or year boundary.

Examples of the syntax are as follows:

# Example of using -rmonth
-rmonth 1

# Example of using -rmonthx
-rmonthx 2

# Example of using -rday
-rday 25

# Example of using -nday
-nday 3

To verify that the issue has been successfully resolved, ensure that the wanted backup is selected from the specified date range.

 Note: Be cautious when using the -rmonth and -rmonthx syntax, as it may affect the search date range. 

With any of the above options for influencing the effective search date range, filters such as -first, -last, -week, or -rtype can also be in the selection statement.

You can experiment with any of the above options using the interactive selection function from the main menu prior to including them within a job policy. The resulting selection work-list can then be viewed using the View function from the main menu. This process does not result in moving backup data therefore is a good way to confirm the syntax used gives the intended results. 

All the above syntax is entered into a Job Policy definition on the Select_Flags line as per the examples below:
 

=========================================================
 Job Policy: /atoadmin/etc/admbatch-IOmart1.cfg
================< Job Policy Contents >=================

Environment_Number::   4
Base_Group_Name::      iomart1
Sub_Group_Numbers::    0
Select_Flags::         -d -nday 2 -last
View_Flags::            -d
Tapeout_Flags::        -d -stageonly -D -m -inc

=========================================================
 
=========================================================
 Job Policy: /atoadmin/etc/admbatch-IOmart1.cfg
================< Job Policy Contents >=================

Environment_Number::   4
Base_Group_Name::      iomart1
Sub_Group_Numbers::    0
Select_Flags::         -d -rmonth 1 -last
View_Flags::            -d
Tapeout_Flags::        -d -stageonly -D -m -inc

=========================================================