How client data is stored

Tivoli® Storage Manager policies are rules that determine how client data is stored and managed. The rules include where the data is initially stored, how many backup versions are kept, how long archive copies are kept, and more.

Policy-based data management helps you focus more on the business requirements for protecting data and less on managing storage devices and media. To implement business requirements, which are sometimes called the service level agreement (SLA), you define storage policies.

For example, policy can define the following key data requirements for a business organization:

The data to back up and archive
The location for storing the data
The number of versions of data to retain
The time period to retain the data in storage

Policy can also be used to migrate data objects automatically from one storage pool to another. For example, you can initially back up data to storage media such as disk so that the data is quickly restorable. During off-peak hours, you can migrate the data to less-expensive media such as tape.

Depending on your business needs, you can have one policy or many. Within a business organization, for example, different departments with different types of data can have their own customized storage management plans.

Administrators define policies on the Tivoli Storage Manager server. Client nodes are assigned to a policy domain. Policies can be updated, and the updates can be retroactively applied to data that is already managed.