What to back up if you cannot back up everything

If you use a file-oriented backup program, you might want to exclude some subdirectories within the VOB storage directory to save time. Use the guidelines in the following table to determine the relative importance of the various directories.

Table 1. Importance of VOB directories in partial backups
VOB directory	Importance for backup
Top-level VOB storage directory	Required
VOB database subdirectory	Required
Source storage pools	Required
Derived object storage pools	Important, but not required.
Cleartext storage pools	Optional
Administrative directory	Optional

DO pool backup

Derived object storage pools do not exist unless you use the MVFS and programs such as clearmake, omake, or clearaudit. Backing up derived object storage pools is not required because, by definition, DOs can be rebuilt from sources. The importance of backing up these pools might change over time:

In the early stages of a project, when the source base is changing rapidly, the useful life of most derived objects is very short. Omitting DO storage pools from a backup regimen at this stage should not cause a problem.
When a project is relatively stable, DO storage pools might contain many objects that are frequently reused. Loss of a DO storage pool at this stage might significantly increase the time required for the next complete system build, but not for subsequent builds, which can reuse the newly created DOs.
Mature projects might refer to DOs that are hard to rebuild (they might require compilers that are no longer available, or views that were deleted). These DOs are valuable, and should be backed up regularly or, better yet, stored as elements in a VOB.

Even if you do not back up entire DO pools, back up at least the pool root directory (d\ddft, for example) and pool_id file. This practice prevents pool root check failures from checkvob after the VOB is restored.

Cleartext pool backup

Backing up cleartext storage pools is not important, because type managers re-create cleartext data containers as necessary.

Even if you do not back up entire cleartext pools, back up at least the pool root directory (c\cdft, for example) and pool_id file. This practice prevents pool root check failures from checkvob after the VOB is restored.

Administrative directory backup

The admin directory contains data about how much disk space that the VOB and its derived objects use. The HCL VersionVault scheduler runs periodic jobs that collect data on disk space use and store it in this directory. By default, the scheduler stores data for the previous 30 days. This historical data cannot be re-created. If the data is important, back up the admin directory.