Backup policies are rules that define the schedule for automatic backups. You can create a backup policy and apply it to one or more backup sets. After you configure the NAS shares for backup, the data from the shares is backed up according to the schedule set in the backup policy.

A backup policy for a NAS share defines the following:

📝 Note
​ Druva creates a default backup policy for your setup. You can assign the default backup policy to one or more backup sets. You can also update or delete this backup policy.

📝 Note
​ The backup schedule that you define in a backup policy also depends on your organization's policies.

Retention defines the rules for retaining your backups (recovery point) within the storage. Use the retention period to define the duration for which you want to retain your historical backups.

The objective of retention is to keep important data for future access, depending on how critical it is. Retention also ensures that backups that are no longer required are cleaned from your storage periodically, resulting in less storage utilization and costs.

❗ Important

The retention period would not be honored for the most recent recovery point when a server or VM or backup set is disabled. This allows you to restore the latest recovery point later if required.

Retention should consider the value of your data and the compliance requirements. The different types of data will be retained for different durations. For example, a bank's retention period for customers' financial records is different from facilities inventory records.

The main factors to consider while defining a retention period are:

Druva follows the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) retention model wherein, in case of an overlap, the retention setting of the longer period (Son-Father-Grandfather relation) is considered. The recovery point is expired as per the settings of the higher period. For example, in case there is an overlap between the daily and weekly retention period, the weekly retention period is considered. So daily is the smallest unit and weekly overrides daily > monthly overrides weekly > yearly overrides monthly.

Also, Druva follows the Gregorian calendar for tracking days.

While backup schedules are configured on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis the last recovery point created by the backups on that particular day will be retained as per the retention setting.

You can define the following durations to retain recovery points.

The recovery point name displayed on the Management Console is recovery point creation time as per the server time zone, on which the backup occurred. Druva considers the time zone of the server for retaining the recovery points as per the retention setting.

If you are registering the server under default organization, Druva provides a default backup policy with the following retention settings:

📝 Note
​ The above default retention settings are applicable for Warm storage and Long Term Retention (LTR) tiers.

The following diagram illustrates the recovery points that will be available on a given day ( Feb 9 in this example) based on the retention settings you have configured. In this example the policy is created and backups start on Dec 30 of the previous year.

On 9 Feb you will have 17 recovery points or recovery points to restore as described in the table.

📝 Note
​Daily is the smallest unit and weekly overrides daily and monthly overrides weekly and yearly overrides monthly.

In continuation with the example above, so let us say malware was detected on 9 Feb evening. After investigation, it was discovered that the data till 7 Feb is corrupted. In that case, the recovery point available to you will be of 6 Feb which is available due to the daily recovery point. However, there could be a data loss of data backed between 7 Feb and 9 Feb.

This section provides instructions to create a backup policy for NAS shares.

Before adding a backup policy for NAS shares, ensure you have read:

You can also click the Customize Table Columns icon to get a list of all the columns on the page.

The column configuration persists across sessions in the same browser.

📝 Note
​ You can resize a column on the Backup Policies table by dragging it to the desired location.

In the Overview section, enter the following details, and then click Next.

In the Backup Schedule section, enter the following details:

Add Schedule: Use it to create more schedules. Click Add Schedule as many times as the number of schedules you want to create.

Ignore backup window for the first backup: Ignore the backup window for the first backup job. You can disable this option to enforce the backup window for the first backup job. The first backup can exceed the backup window because it needs to scan a large number of files. We recommend keeping this option enabled to ensure that the first backup is successful.

The Remove icon is displayed when you have added more than one schedule.

In the Retention tab, select the storage tier and enter the duration for which the daily, monthly, weekly, and yearly recovery points should be retained. Click Next.

📝 Notes
​ Any changes that you make to the existing retention policies will be applied to all the new as well as the existing recovery points.

Storage Tier settings

You can select Warm, Long Term Retention (LTR), or Archive options.

Warm

By default, the warm storage tier is selected.

In the Retention tab, enter the duration for which the daily, monthly, weekly, and yearly recovery points should be retained.

Long Term Retention (LTR)

Select Long Term Retention (LTR) for backup sets that need to be retained for a year or longer.

In the Retention tab, enter the duration for which the daily, monthly, weekly, and yearly recovery points should be retained and the value of the Long Term Retention Threshold.

Recovery pointss older than the set threshold value are moved to the cold storage. This lowers the total storage cost for the LTR backup sets.

For more information, see About Long Term Retention, and Enabling Long Term Retention.

Archive

Select Archive to move the backup data directly to the cold storage.

In the Retention tab, enter the duration you want to retain the archived data. For example, a retention value of 22 years means that all the recovery points are retained for 22 years.

Archive is used for storing data that is rarely accessed or restored but required to be protected for future reference and compliance purposes. Archive allows you to bypass the warm storage tier and directly backup the data to the cold tier. Data stored in the cold tier incurs up to 50% lower fee.
For more information, see Protect File Server and NAS data in Archive storage tier.

Enable Data Lock

You enable the Data Lock for the backup policy. Data Lock prevents your backup recovery points from accidental or malicious deletion or modification. For more information about Data Lock, refer to Data Lock for preventing malicious or accidental deletion of recovery points.

📝 Note
​ Once you apply Data Lock to the backup policy, you cannot:

In the Pre/Post Script Settings section, perform the following tasks to execute custom pre-backup and post backup scripts, and click Finish. Configuring pre/post scripts in NAS share backups is optional.

The following table describes different configuration scenarios of the NAS scanning methods.
The Vendor native recovery points method takes the highest precedence when enabling it on the Add/Edit Device page. Advanced Smart Scan is not policy-driven and is applicable if requirements are met.

The following examples describe the applicable scanning methods based on conditions:

📝 Note
​ You can also copy a backup policy from the Manage > Backup Policies page.

You can delete a backup policy only after 7 days of the deletion of the last backup set mapped to the policy.

📝 Note

You can delete a backup policy only after 7 days of the deletion of the last backup set mapped to the policy.

📝 Note
​ You cannot delete a policy associated with one or more backup sets. Associate backup sets with other policies before deleting the policy.