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DeltaV Whitepaper
May 2013 – Page 19 Backup and Recovery FAQs
How are the DeltaV databases backed up?
Backup plan templates are provided for the DeltaV configuration database, Batch Historian, Continuous Historian
(DeltaV Continuous Historian and legacy (PI) historian), and Event Chronicle. In these backup plan templates,
each DeltaV database is first backed up to a temporary location using the specific database’s internal backup
mechanism and then the backup data is copied from the temporary location to the storage location configured in
the backup plan. The temporary backup files are located on either the C: or D: disk volume and the location is
determined by the backup plan templates used, either the C: disk volume templates or the D: disk volume
templates.
How often should I create backups?
This depends on your specific requirements. The backup plans may be scheduled to run at any frequency.
Backup and Recovery provides the capability to use popular backup schemes, such as Grandfather-Father-Son
and Tower of Hanoi, as well as to create custom backup schemes. All backup schemes are based on full,
incremental and differential backup methods.
What are the data storage requirements for my system?
Your specific data storage requirements depend on several factors, such as how often you back up your data,
what type of data are backed up, the level of compression applied, use of Deduplication, etc. In general, a full
block-level backup with normal compression requires about 50% of the space required by the data on the disk.
For example, a backup data archive of one hard disk drive with 2 partitions, one partition of 100GB with 5GB used
and a second partition of 200GB with 15GB used, would be about 10GB (50% of 20GB). Note with
incremental/differential backups the general rule is not as straightforward, the backup data archive size depends
on the data changes, which depends on system usage.
Can my backup data be compressed?
Yes. You can configure each backup plan to provide the desired level of compression on the data being backed
up. The backup plan configuration provides four levels of compression: None, Normal, High, and Maximum. A
higher level of compression means the backup file will be smaller, but also means the backup plan will take longer
to complete. The default compression setting is Normal.
How does data compression affect the size of my backup data?
The backup plan configuration provides four levels of compression: None, Normal, High, and Maximum. The
optimal data compression level depends on the type of data being backed up. For example, even maximum
compression will not significantly reduce the archive size if the archive contains essentially compressed files, such
as .jpg, .pdf or .mp3. However, formats such as .doc or .xls will be compressed well.
How can I secure my backup data files?
You can configure archive protection in each backup plan to provide the desired level of security on the data
being backed up. If you enable archive protection, you can set a password for the archive and also select the
desired level of encryption on the archive. The archive protection feature provides four levels of encryption: Do
not encrypt, AES 128, AES 192, or AES 256. The default archive protection setting is Disabled.