Setting automatic expiration (VSS and legacy)

Specify the following information in the VSSPOLICY statement:

VSSPOLICY srvname dbname backuptype backupdest mgmtcls

The statement contains the following values:

srvname

Name of the SQL Server or wildcard character (*)

dbname

Name of database or wildcard character (*)

backuptype

Backup type: FULL or wildcard character (*). Because VSS supports only full backup types, when you specify a wildcard character for backuptype, a FULL backup type is used.

backupdest

Backup destination: TSM or LOCAL or wildcard character (*)

mgmtcls

Management Class name. This sets the management class for the specified class of backup.

The general include/exclude syntax for object naming is:

include "objectNameSpecification" [ManagementClassName]
exclude "objectNameSpecification"

where:

objectNameSpecification is:

SqlServerName[\InstanceName]\dataType\...\DatabaseName
[\typeInfo]\backupType*
                    

dataType is:

meta | data

typeInfo is:

LogicalFileName (for file backup type)

GroupName (for group backup type)

... (for log and set backup types)

not used for full and diff backup types

backupType is:

full | diff | log | group | file | set

Considerations:

• The wildcard character * matches zero or more characters. The wildcard character ? matches any one character.
• The wildcard character * within a qualifier replaces zero or more characters only within that qualifier. The qualifier itself must exist in the matching object name.
• To match zero or more qualifiers, use ellipses: \...\
• All specifications must end with the wildcard character *. This is required because the specification must match both object names and temporary names. Temporary names are used to enable rolling back a backup transaction if an error occurs. Temporary names are object names with a unique string appended to the backupType qualifier.
• An objectNameSpecification should be placed within double quotation marks. If the specification includes spaces or special characters, the double quotes are required.
• For exclude statements, meta should be a match in the specification, either explicitly, or by wildcard or ellipses. Excluding meta excludes the entire object.
• Include statements can specify either meta or data separately and explicitly, or both by wildcard or ellipses.
• You may specify both data and meta objects in options file include lists in order to assign management classes. However, when you use exclude statements, you should specify only the meta objects. If a data object is not backed up, its meta object will not be created.
• Log and set object names are always unique. The typeInfo contains the qualifiers whose values make them unique. Because they are generated at the time of the backup, they are not predictable and you cannot specify them.
• Include/exclude lists are processed from the bottom up, and processing stops at the first match. To ensure that more specific specifications are processed at all, you should list the more general specifications before the more specific ones so that they will be processed after the specific. Otherwise, the more general will match the target before the more specific are seen.
  • When a match is found, processing of the list stops and the statement that matches is examined. If it is an exclude statement, the matching object name is not backed up. If it is an include statement, the matching object name is backed up. If the include statement contains a ManagementClassName, that management class is associated with the object name for this backup and for all backups of the same name on the current node.
  • If a match is not found, the object is backed up using the default management class for the current node.
  • If a match is found for an include that specifies a management class, but the specified management class is not valid for the current node, the default management class for the current node is used.
• Include/exclude processing does not produce error messages for invalid specifications. Therefore, you should thoroughly test all include/exclude lists. Specifying an invalid management class name will generate an error message in the dsierror.log.
• For case-sensitivity, the Windows Tivoli Storage Manager API currently assumes the specifications are for a Windows file system and ignores case. However, because case may be honored in the future, you should always use the correct case. Specifically,
  • Use correct case for SQL names (server, database, group, or file names) as displayed by the query sql or query tsm commands.
  • Use lowercase for the Data Protection for SQL constants: meta, data, full, diff, log, group, file, and set.

The following are examples of individual objectNameSpecifications as they might appear in include/exclude statements:

SqlServerNames:

SQL2008, SQL2012

InstanceNames:

INST1, INST2

DatabaseNames:

Db1, Db2, Db3

GroupNames:

g1, g2, g3

LogicalFileNames:

f1, f2, f3