Follow best practices when implementing a backup strategy to maximize the effectiveness of your backups.

Use redundant drives

Using mirrored or RAID drives for the database on the STA server helps to protect against a single drive failure.

Make regular backups

Back up the database regularly, and schedule full backups when database and server activity is low. The STA Backup service provides an easy way to do this. Frequent backups enable you to recover the database to a state close to current.

Back up to an external server

External backups protect your data from an operating system or hardware failure on the STA server. The required space on the backup server is variable—the size should be a multiple of the size used for the STA database local backup, depending on the number of copies to be retained. Backup server storage should be mirrored or striped.

Automate your space management policies

If you back up the database to an external server, you can use a backup service of your choice to manage the files according to your site policies. Absent a backup service, you can set up a Linux cron job to delete old backups.

Archive older backups

Archived backups provide added protection in case your most recent backup is corrupted. Depending on your site policies, you can archive backups to tape or another server. A suggested practice is to archive files more than one or two weeks old and delete archives more than one or two months old.

Manage the database and backup space

It is the customer's responsibility to manage space on the STA server and the backup server. To help keep the active database at a reasonable size, STA automatically rolls off detailed exchange and SNMP trap data that is more than 60 days old.

Use the STA Resource Monitor to monitor space on the STA server

Oracle recommends that usage for any partition should never exceed 80 percent. You can use STA Resource Monitor to define high-water marks for disk usage, and the Resource Monitor will alert you if these are exceeded.