No data loss thanks to the grandfather-father-son principle

With such tapes, for example, the data backup is performed in a rotation scheme. A backup with only seven tapes, on the other hand, is not exemplary!

The Langmeier Backup software is used, among other things, to back up the data of customers in small to medium-sized companies according to certain principles and protect it in the long term.

One of these important data backup systems is the implementation of the so-called grandfather-father-son principle.

This data backup strategy - often referred to as the generational principle - involves backing up data in successive stages, similar to the family sequence of grandfather, father and son. This results in data backup versions from which recovery versions are created for the user. This ensures that if the data is damaged at the "father" level, the lost data can be restored from the "grandfather" level. The same applies to data corruption at the "son" level. This is why this data backup principle is often referred to as a rotation scheme. Here, tape rotation is used as a backup procedure, which means that the tapes used in this backup procedure are reused according to this principle.

Langmeier Software GmbH proceeds in detail as follows for the backup

Three different data backup groups are created, a daily, a weekly and a monthly group. For a data backup within a classic five-day week, the daily backup is performed on a new backup tape, whereby the so-called son tapes are rotated. The tape from the first day is overwritten after every seven days. The father tapes are used at the end of each week, resulting in a monthly rotation so that these tapes are only overwritten after one month. The grandfather tapes, on the other hand, are inserted at the end of the month. This means that they rotate for a whole year and the first tape in this series is only overwritten after a whole year.

In concrete terms, this means that for the five-day week, the son bands are used for the first four working days and a father band is used on the last working day. The father band is used every Friday, i.e. four times a month, and a grandfather band is used on the last day of each month.

This results in a logical data backup principle through rotation within the grandfather-father-son principle, which we at Langmeier Software GmbH use for our customers' data backups and have professionalized through years of experience. Incremental data backup is also used here. This means that only the data that has changed since the last backup is backed up. The advantage here is that a lot of storage space and storage time is saved.

The advantages of a data backup based on the grandfather-father-son principle are obvious

All data is retained for such a long time in the short, medium and long term that it can be restored from the previous level at any time in the event of data loss.