GFS Retention

The ability to recover data from any point in time is the ideal goal of backup. The most straightforward method is to perform regular backups, usually on a daily basis. Even with space-saving techniques such as forever-incremental backups, synthetic backups, data compression, and deduplication, this approach requires unlimited storage capacities, which almost no company can afford. That is why backup retention policies and backup rotation schemes are in place.

The GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) backup retention policy aims to maximize recovery points while minimizing storage space. In Simple terms, the goal is to obtain the most recovery points while using the least storage space possible.

How GFS Retention Works

A son is the youngest member of the family, followed by his father and grandfather. In the world of backups, a son is the most recent backup from a given point in time, and a grandfather is the most distant. A son is typically a daily backup, a father is a weekly backup, and a grandfather is a monthly backup. You can, however, add more relatives in between, such as hourly, quarterly, or annual backups.

The classic GFS scheme implies daily backups as ‘sons’, weekly as ‘fathers’, and monthly as ‘grandfathers’. The first ‘father’ is the initial full backup made on Monday, and the subsequent incremental daily backups are ‘sons’. The last backup of the week becomes the next ‘father’.

The ‘sons’ are rotated using the ‘first in, first out'(FIFO) rotation scheme, which means that the oldest ‘son’ is replaced with the new incremental backup, and the cycle repeats. The month’s final backup becomes a ‘grandfather’. Following that, ‘fathers’ begin to rotate according to the FIFO scheme.

GFS Retention offered by BDRSuite

BDRSuite assigns the GFS flag to additional full, synthetic full, or incremental backups.

There are two types of GFS retention available

GFS with Full Backup
GFS with IncrementalM

1. GFS with Full Backups

GFS restore points are created by performing additional full or synthetic full backups. The additional full backup or synthetic full backups are marked as weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly GFS recovery points. So, for the backup job to have GFS with Full Backups, you should have already configured either the synthetic or additional full backup. You can select weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly recovery points or any combination of GFS recovery points.

2. GFS with Incremental

GFS restore points are created using incremental backups rather than full or synthetic full backups. The incremental backups are labelled as GFS restore points on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. After successfully completing the first incremental backup of the third day, the first-day increments will be merged to form a daily GFS recovery point. Similarly, on the fourth day, the increments from the second-day will be consolidated as a single restore point, and so on for the fifth and sixth days. The daily GFS recovery points are maintained as a result of this process. Similarly, if you select weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly backups, the incremental backups from the previous week/month/quarter/year are merged, and a GFS recovery point will be created.

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