Q: What items should I track in a backup capacity report?

A: Capacity reports like those generated by Symantec's Veritas NetBackup Advanced Reporter can contain the following items:

• Full backup volumes tell you the total amount of data you're looking after. Incremental backup volumes tell you the change rate of the data.



• The number of files you back up can help you plan for data replication.



• Monitor tape utilization to reduce the overall number of tapes. The number of tapes currently assigned gives you an overall picture of your backup storage.



• Backup job start time/duration can fine-tune scheduling. Throughput can identify bottlenecks and help with job scheduling.



• Restore requests can establish effective backup data-retention policies.



• Keep a history of these items to determine growth/change patterns with backups, and to forecast effectively.