Administrator's Guide

Chapter 12. Managing Client Data Using Policies

Policies are rules that you set at the ADSM server to help you manage client data. Policies control how and when client data is stored, for example:

• How and when files are backed up and archived to server storage

• How space-managed files are migrated to server storage

• The number of copies of a file and the length of time copies are kept in server storage

See the following sections:

Concepts:

"Client Operations Controlled by Policy"

"The Parts of a Policy"

"More on Management Classes"

"How Files Are Deleted"

"How ADSM Selects Files for Policy Operations"

"How Client Migration Works with Backup and Archive"

Tasks:

"Using the Standard Policy"

"Creating Your Own Policies"

"Defining and Updating a Policy Domain"

"Defining and Updating a Policy Set"

"Defining and Updating a Management Class"

"Defining and Updating a Backup Copy Group"

"Defining and Updating an Archive Copy Group"

"Assigning a Default Management Class"

"Validating and Activating Policy Sets"

"Running Expiration Processing to Delete Expired Files"

"Querying Policy"

"Deleting Policy"

In this chapter, most examples illustrate how to perform tasks by using the ADSM command line interface. For information about the ADSM commands, see ADSM Administrator's Reference, or issue the HELP command from the command line of an ADSM administrative client.

All of the ADSM commands can be performed from the administrative client web interface. A Version 3 administrative client GUI is also available for the Windows NT and Windows 95 operating systems. For more information about using the administrative interfaces, see ADSM Quick Start. You can find detailed help for using the graphical user interfaces in the online help facilities.