Question on Backup Exec 2012 Job Superseding

[Grayc]

Hello Everyone!

I have a question regarding backup jobs supersededing each other.  But first, let me tell my
current backup job seup:

> I am using Backup Exec 2012 in an Windows 2008 R2 environment.  I have 3 independent networks, each with it's own media server with an attached 10TB RAID and dedicated tape library with one internal tape drive.

>  For each server, I have scheduled Annual FULL, Monthly FULL, Weekly FULL and Differentials that run Monday thru Thursdays only.  Each job backs up to disk and a duplicate-to-tape job runs immediately after the FULL task completes.
 
> The FULL jobs are scheduled to run starting at 6 pm on Friday nights, with the last scheduled FULL job to run at 6 pm on Sunday evenings.

I have gotten mixed results such as:
> One server will run the jobs perfectly.
> Another server will ran the Annual FULL (These are scheduled for the first week of October 2014!) over this past weekend (19-21 September 2014)
> And others Weekly FULL jobs simply "supercede".  Yet the Job History did not show what other job superseded the Weekly FULL job!

My theory is that the my current Weekly and Monthly FULLs are waiting for the Annual FULLs (scheduled to run the first week in October 2014) to run first before they (The Weekly & Monthly FULLs) will stop being "superseded."

I already put the Annual FULL job on "Hold" and tried to do a "Run Now" on the Weekly FULL, but all it does is report back "Superseded."

Am I correct on my theory of supersession?

Any advice and help is greatly appreciated!

[Laurie_Downey · Accepted solution]

Grayc,

I would suggest ensuring that Backup Exec is fully patched by running live update, and also refer to the following article. Let me know if this helps.

Incremental backup job does not run and is set to 'Superseded' status if scheduled full backup job is on hold and pending to run: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH216061

[pkh]

In order for the jobs to supersede, they must all be part of the same scheduled job and they must all start at exactly the same time. Then the job with the least frequent schedule will supersede the rest. See my article below https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/superseding-jobs-be-2012

[Grayc]

Thank you for your advice and help!  The referenced documents were a big help too!

Turns out I had an Archive FULL job that I had put on "Hold" and this was the causing the problem with the Weekly FULL being "Superseded".  As soon as I removed that Archive FULL job, I was able to rerun the missed Weekly FULL jobs that were scheduled to run over the weekend.