If you have HPUX, I would strongly suggest making an Ignite tape at least 2x month. At work we all do this weekly, as a precaution for Disaster Recovery.

You can make tarballs and store them on your system for important files. However, if your system is down you can't get to those. So, make that tape as often as you can.

You can automate it in cron Here is a script that I use.

CRON ENTRY:
# This is to create Weekly IGNITE tape backups.
29 10 * * 5 /usr/local/bin/mkignite 2> /dev/console 1> /dev/console

****************cut here ***********************
# cat /usr/local/bin/mkignite
echo "Beginning Ignite Tape Creation" > /dev/console
echo "Rewinding Tape" > /dev/console
mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn rew # Make sure that tape is rewound

sleep 30

echo "Make recovery in progress" > /dev/console
/opt/ignite/bin/make_recovery -C -A -v -d /dev/rmt/0mn 2> /dev/console 1> /deve

echo `uname -n` "mkignite" > /tmp/ignite.comp
tail -2 /var/opt/ignite/logs/makrec.log1 >> /tmp/ignite.comp

mailx -s "Weekly tape backup" root < /tmp/ignite.comp
cp /tmp/ignite.comp /root/backups/ignite.comp.`date +%m%d%y`
**************cut here *************************

If you are already doing this great, but you must be concious of Disaster recovery. It is your responsibility as the SA.