Designing Management Classes for a Seven-Year Finance Audit
An audit finding requires a new policy domain for a finance application running on 12 Linux nodes. The application writes about 600 GB into 4 million small files, and the business needs restore points every four hours, 90 days of daily versions, and 30 days of deleted-file recovery. Auditors also require one immutable monthly copy retained for seven years; they call it a monthly full. The current STANDARD domain has a single management class with VEREXISTS=3, VERDELETED=2, RETEXTRA=30, RETONLY=60, destination DISKPOOL, and copy destination COPYPOOL. The storage team wants to avoid a second full copy on disk and asks whether extending RETEXTRA to 2555 days would satisfy the audit. A developer also asks why files under /app/archive are being retained only 30 days despite an include statement.
1. Design the management classes and copy groups for daily operational recovery and the seven-year monthly requirement. Include the key copy group parameters and explain how they interact.
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Use two management classes: FIN_DAILY for operational recovery and FIN_MONTHLY for audit. FIN_DAILY backup copy group: destination DISKPOOL, copy destination COPYPOOL, VEREXISTS high enough for 90 days of daily restore points (for one daily backup, 90; because backups run every four hours, either run a separate daily schedule for the 90-day requirement or raise the version count and verify with QUERY BACKUP), VERDELETED=30, RETEXTRA=90, RETONLY=30. FIN_MONTHLY archive copy group: destination TAPEPOOL, RETVER=2555. Bind /app data to FIN_DAILY by include, and run a monthly BACKUP ARCHIVE with an include that binds /app data to FIN_MONTHLY. The archive copy group is what gives a separate monthly point; a backup copy group cannot be made immutable. Because the monthly archive is separate, the daily copy group can stay smaller and the DB does not track 2,555 daily versions. Validate that FIN_MONTHLY exists in the new domain and that the archive schedule uses it.
2. The storage team proposes RETEXTRA=2555 instead of an archive copy group. Evaluate that proposal and its effect on the server database and tape usage.
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No. RETEXTRA is a retention day count for backup versions that are no longer the active version; it does not create a monthly full and does not make data immutable. Setting RETEXTRA=2555 while VEREXISTS remains low would keep some inactive versions for seven years, but the set of versions is driven by backup frequency and file changes, so you would not reliably have one per month, and the daily backup pool and DB would grow unpredictably. It also would not satisfy an auditor who wants a separate monthly copy. The correct control is an archive copy group with RETVER=2555 and a monthly archive schedule, or a backup set if the requirement is a point-in-time portable copy. Keep the daily copy group at 90 days and monitor expiration so the audit copy is not tied to the daily backup lifecycle.
3. A developer says an include statement should bind /app/archive to a long-retention management class, but files there still expire after 30 days. Explain what to check in client option precedence and include/exclude processing.
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An include statement is not a retention setting by itself; it binds a file to a management class, and that class must have the relevant copy group for the operation. Check that the include is in the effective option source and not overridden by a client option set, that the path matches the client's view and syntax, that include/exclude statements are evaluated in order so a broader exclude or earlier include can win, and that FIN_MONTHLY has an archive copy group and the job was an archive rather than a backup. The 30-day result suggests the file is still binding to the default management class or to FIN_DAILY's backup copy group. Use QUERY BACKUP and QUERY MGMTCLASS, and test with a controlled dsmc archive command. If the requirement is only for backup, create a backup management class with the required retention instead of reusing an archive class.