Forum Discussion

NB_IT's avatar
NB_IT
Level 2
16 years ago

Calendar Schedule

Hi all,

We want to backup our master server every Sunday directly on tape. The last Sunday of every moth, the tape has to be assigned to a volume pool other than the volume pool of the policy (--> for longer retention time). My idea is to create two different schedules using the recurring weekdays option in the calendar schedule and assign a different  volume pool to the second schedule.

For the "normal" Sunday backups I'd choose Sunday 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. For the backup which runs on the last Sunday of the month I'd only activate Sunday Last. I need to check the 4th Sunday in the "normal" backup schedule as well, since there are months which can have 5 Sundays (--> for example August 2009). When I do this, most 4th Sundays are also the last ones of the month. Does the backup run twice with this setting or which schedule would NetBackup execute on those days? The start window for both schedules is the same (10 a.m. - 11 a.m.)

Does anyone know how NetBackup works with such an config? We're runnig NetBackup with version 6.5.3.1.

Thanks in advance for you feedback.

Fabie
7.1.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
Configuring
NetBackup
  • NB_IT's avatar
    NB_IT
    16 years ago
    Thanks for all your replies! :-) This sounds as if I'll get the desired result with the schedules I had in mind.

    I have now set up two schedules:
    schedule 1: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Sunday with retention 1 month
    schedule 2: Last Sunday with retention 1 year

    If I understood correctly, schedule 2 should be the one executed on the last Sunday in month since the retention is higher than in schedule 1.

    I'll try to go with this an will see if it works. The idea of switching to the 1st Sunday is good but I would have to change our whole company backup rotation schedule to implement this strategy. But I'll definitely will consider it if the setup above won't work.

    Fabie
  • sumanreddy's avatar
    sumanreddy
    Level 4
    16 years ago

    Hi Fabie

    Did go through your query....! yes Net Backup will automatically check whether its the Last Sunday in a Month.....! 

    Configuration based upon your Query:

    Select Calendar schedule  and then you could select the recurring dates
    which would enable the Net Backup to automatically check for the last sunday in a month

    Cheers
    Suman

  • NB_IT's avatar
    NB_IT
    Level 2
    16 years ago
    Hi Suman

    Thanks for your reply! I'll have to work with the recurring weekdays since it's always the last Sunday in a month and not the last day in a month.

    How does Netbackup prioritise the schedules in this case? Does it prefer the schedule with the longer rentention period and skip the other?

    Fabienne
  • Deepak_W's avatar
    Deepak_W
    Level 6
    16 years ago
    @ NB IT

     

    Backup frequency determines schedule priority
     
    If more than one automatic schedule is due for a client within a policy, the backup frequency determines the schedule that NetBackup uses:
    Jobs from the schedule with the lower frequency (longer period between backups) always have higher priority. For example, a schedule with a backup frequency of one year has priority over a schedule with a backup frequency of one month.
     
     If NetBackup encounters a backup policy with two schedules (one full, one incremental) that are each due to run:
     
    a.    if each is within the defined time window, and
    b.    if each is configured with the same frequency value, the schedule that is first alphabetically runs first.
     
     
    For example, NetBackup prioritizes the following three schedules in the following order:
     
    1 monthly_full (frequency is one month)
    2 weekly_full (frequency is two weeks)
    3 daily_incremental (frequency is one week)
    If all three schedules are due for a client, NetBackup adds the job for the monthly full to the worklist and skips the other two. How NetBackup prioritizes each backup job that it adds to its worklist is
    explained in Chapter 2 of the NetBackup Administrator’s Guide, Volume II.

     

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    16 years ago
    Sounds similar to a policy we have for some servers.

    Have 3 schedules in the policy with the following retentions and Volume Pools set:

    Daily-Inc (Cumulative Incremental) / Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri / 1 month retention / DAILY Volume Pool
    Weekly (Full Backup) / 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Last Sunday / 1 month retention / WEEKLY Volume Pool (Override Policy Default)
    Monthly (Full Backup) / 1st Sunday / 3 month retention / WEEKLY Volume Pool (Override Policy Default)

    This setup does not cause clashes of schedules, within the policy.
    As you can see we were tentative around using the Last recurring named day, so changed to make it the first named day of the month. This was back in netbackup 5 days.

    This mirrors a Grandfather Father Son (GFS) relationship strategy.

    PS We dont mix retention on tapes.



  • NB_IT's avatar
    NB_IT
    Level 2
    16 years ago
    Thanks for all your replies! :-) This sounds as if I'll get the desired result with the schedules I had in mind.

    I have now set up two schedules:
    schedule 1: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Sunday with retention 1 month
    schedule 2: Last Sunday with retention 1 year

    If I understood correctly, schedule 2 should be the one executed on the last Sunday in month since the retention is higher than in schedule 1.

    I'll try to go with this an will see if it works. The idea of switching to the 1st Sunday is good but I would have to change our whole company backup rotation schedule to implement this strategy. But I'll definitely will consider it if the setup above won't work.

    Fabie