Cisco ACS 5.2 Backup management

[Demmet333]

Hi

We are using vmware Cisco ACS 5.2 in our company. And i'm confused about how does backuping works. We have maximum stored data period. As i understand, anything data out that period is purged. And we have icremental backups that works after complete backup. So restoring that incremental backups we can find only information from last maximum period or from any time? And how does purging works? Is it clear that if we use incremental backup, the data cleared every day?

[minkumar]

Hi

The Monitoring & Report Viewer database handles large volumes of  data. When the database size becomes too large, it slows down all the  processes. You do not need all the data all the time. Therefore, to  efficiently manage data and to make good use of the disk space, you must  back up your data regularly and purge unwanted data that uses up  necessary disk space. Purging data deletes it from the database.

Since the Monitoring & Report Viewer database size is large, the  backup process takes quite a bit of time to complete. ACS 5.1 introduces  the incremental backup option, which enables you to take a complete  backup of your Monitoring & Report Viewer database once and then to  back up data incrementally (that is, only the updates are backed up and  stored separately) from the next time onward. An incremental backup  performs a full database backup the first time it is executed, and  subsequently only backs up the updates that are made to the database.  Incremental backups are therefore much faster and make efficient use of  disk space. You can also configure the frequency and time of incremental  backups.

With incremental backups, multiple backup files are stored in the  repository. However, when you restore data from an incremental backup,  ACS restores data from all the backup files starting from the full  backup and continuing until the latest incremental backup.

Purging:

If you enable incremental backup, data is purged daily at 4:00 a.m. at  the local time zone where the ACS instance that runs the View process is  located.

The following database limitations apply for purging:

•If the database disk usage is greater than 114 GB (95% of the total database size of 120 GB), an alarm is sent to the dashboard.

•If  the database disk usage is greater than 120 GB (100% of the total  database size of 120 GB), a backup is run immediately followed by a  purge until the database disk usage is below 120 GB. If the backup  fails, check the database disk usage again.

–If  the database disk usage is greater than 120 GB, but less than 150 GB  (125% of the total database size of 120 GB), the Monitoring & Report  Viewer decides to wait.

–If  the backup fails and the database disk usage is greater than 150 GB, a  purge occurs regardless of whether or not a backup has occurred until  the database disk usage is below 120 GB.

For example, if you specify to preserve 5 months of data, but the  database size is over 120 GB, a purge occurs. If the database size  remains over 120 GB after the purge, an additional month of data is  purged, which results in 4 months of data preserved. Before the purge,  the database is backed up.

•If  the database size is over 150 GB, a purge occurs regardless of whether  or not a database backup has occurred. If the database size remains over  120 GB, additional purges occur until the database is 120 GB or less.

You can refer the following link for further refernece:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/net_mgmt/cisco_secure_access_control_system/5.2/user/guide/viewer_sys_ops.html

Regards

Minakshi

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[Demmet333]

Thanks for your reply! I saw this materials at cisco.com, and these information is not so clear for me.

ACS restores data from all the backup files starting from the full  backup and continuing until the latest incremental backup. So, for example, if i have maximum stored data period 1 month, i can see only backups from that period?

[minkumar]

Hi

  I am not sure if i have understood the question correctly, But lets say if you scheduled the incremental back up on 1 feb

and shceduled it for 4 AM daily

So according to the incremental back up

It will take the full back up of the ACS on 1 feb and then would everyday at 4 am it will start taking the back up of updates on the ACS.

So when you will restore the database. You database will be restored from feb1.

Let me know if it helped

Regards

Minakshi

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[Demmet333]

Hi

Lets go for another example. I've done next configuration:

Maximum stored data period : 1 month

Incremental data backup: daily

Full view database backup: 1 month

For example I've started it at 1st of January. And now is 10th of March. Is this correct that i can see in backup information about 1st of January, or only information from last month that was February?

It's quite difficult to explain. Is it clear that Maximum stored data period : 1 month means that all old month backups will be purged?

[minkumar]

Ok do you mean that when you will restore these backup's , you would get the back up from 1 of jan.

Yes It is correct.

However if you are asking that after taking the back up, you dont do restore and when database purging occurs, would you be able to see the database back of jan 1?