Hello all,
Is there any one using veritas do the online db2 backup on
routine basis? how to set the policy for mutiple retention ? If I need
to have mutiple retention of that backup and so does the archive log
backup. For example I need have daily db2 online backup with 7 days
retention. I also need to have weekly backup with 30 days retention. I
also need to have quarterly backup with 1 year retention. how can I
archive that? And what's the best practice on how to set up the policy
and schdule ? Is it remended to have to the archive log backup
directly to tape or copy it to disk then use other policy to back it
up to tape ?

You have to set up a number of veritas policy classes for each
distinct retention period required into separate files. Then, right
before starting the backup, copy the correct class file into db2.conf
under $INSTHOME/. This will require one entry for each db2 node for an
MPP system. Then on the Veritas Masterserver, I believe, each policy
has a defined retention period, but I am not completely aware of how
that is set up.
Here's an example of how a client is set up

DATABASE prod1
OBJECTTYPE DATABASE
NODE 0
CLIENT_NAME aaaa0000
POLICY Prod_DB2_WOnFull
SCHEDULE Default-Policy
ENDOPER

This allows you to have different policies for different databases and
different policies for the same database. I believe archive logs are
like file backups, ie userbackups. An example being

OBJECTTYPE ARCHIVE
POLICY prod1_DB2_Logs
SCHEDULE UserBackup
ARCFUNC save
#ARCDIR /home/db2inst1/arcdir/
#RETDIR /home/db2inst1/arcdir
ENDOPER

When archiving directly to tape everytime you want to bring the db
down, it waits for tape mounts to archive the last log from each node.
Since these are usually small files, the tape mount time is far more
significant then the actual backup time. And, if the ratio of nodes to
tape drives isn't one to one, that compounds the situation. Veritas
can be configured to copy it to a disk pool and then a schedule based
backup of that directory to Veritas can be taken.

Hope this helps.