Geof, When a file matches and exclude statement it expires in the same manner as for deletion of the file. After this normal policy according to copygroup settings applies. Yes, you are right - during the work days your backups done at the weekend will expire and be treated as deleted. If retonly=1 then all but the last file copy will be lost. I can suggest you two options: 1. Use exclude.backup and archive the files in question. Be aware that archive copygroup defines only retension period and each archive creation is "new version". 2. At weekends change include statements, backup the files, generate backupset of them, exclude files. Even when files expire the backupset has its own retension period. And because you are performing offline DB backup restore of those files restores the tablespace data and DB engine can be started immediately.
Zlatko Krastev IT Consultant "Gill, Geoffrey L." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on 16.11.2001 17:13:32 Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject: include/exclude list Will someone please explain the pitfalls of changing the include/exclude list as it relates to this issue. We have a server that is running Oracle. There is no TDP for True64 so we're stuck with what we have, the client. Backing up open Oracle files is a waste of time because we know from testing restores they are no good. I've suggested to the admins to exclude those open files from nightly backups because of this. We're talking about 60-70GB. This times 21, the number of versions they have for me is a lot of space. I'd like to know if my understanding is correct. If a file is not in the exclude list then it's backed up, that's an easy one. If it's changed nightly and been backed up for 3 weeks I have 21 copies. If I now exclude the file it's not backed up any longer, however what happens to the 21 copies I have in place? Are they all expired immediately except the last one and removed from the system? The problem is we "would" be stopping the database on weekends and getting good backups. If editing the exclude list would force the good copies to go away then we could not live with that. If there is a way to exclude them some days and then include them other days and still keep 21 good copies then would someone please help me to accomplish this. I'm to the point I can use all the free space I can, got about 20 clients that need backups but I don't have the space yet. Thanks for the help. Geoff Gill TSM Administrator NT Systems Support Engineer SAIC E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (858) 826-4062 Pager: (888) 997-9614