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Protection Policy

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Applies To: System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

In DPM 2006, you specify synchronization frequency and shadow copy schedule. In DPM 2007, you specify retention range, synchronization frequency, and recovery point schedule.

DPM 2007 configures the protection policy, or schedule of jobs, for each protection group based on the recovery goals that you specify for that protection group. Examples of recovery goals are as follows:

  • “Lose no more than one hour of production data.”

  • “Provide me with a retention range of 30 days.”

  • “Make data available for recovery for seven years.”

Your recovery goals quantify your organization's data protection requirements. In DPM, the recovery goals are defined by retention range, data loss tolerance, recovery point schedule, and, for database applications, the express full backup schedule.

The retention range is how long you need the backed-up data to be available. For example, do you need data from today to be available a week from now? Two weeks from now? A year from now?

Data loss tolerance is the maximum amount of data loss, measured in time, that is acceptable to business requirements, and it determines how often DPM should synchronize with the protected computer by collecting data changes from the protected computer. You can change the synchronization frequency to any interval from 15 minutes to 24 hours. You can also choose to synchronize just before a recovery point is created, rather than on a specified time schedule.

The recovery point schedule establishes how many recovery points of this protection group should be created. For file data protection, you select the days and times for which you want recovery points created. For data protection of applications that support incremental backups, the synchronization frequency determines the recovery point schedule. For data protection of applications that do not support incremental backups, the express full backup schedule determines the recovery point schedule.

The combination of recovery points, synchronization, and retention range results in a protection plan, which is a schedule of jobs that will achieve your recovery goals.