Schedules Policy based duplication failing

[AchillesBurden]

We have multiple backup(followed by a scheduled duplicate) jobs created by a policy.

Once the backups complete we have scheduled duplicates to run for each backup job.

The issue being that since the backup/duplicate job is created according to a policy/schedule all the duplicate start at the same time. Our library has 2x drives, the first duplicate to start will hold 1 drive, then a second job will start and hold another drive causing them both to go into queued mode as they are both waiting for a free drive.

 I will then have to cancel/restart one of the jobs so that it will release the drive.

Any suggestions?

[AmolB]

How many duplicate jobs are scheduled to run at the same time.

As you have created policy based jobs you can simply change the schedule.

[Ayush]

IF the Tape library has two tape drives make sure that you have license for library expansion option is installed, if yes then Delete and recreate policy based duplicate backup job and recreate it.

Simply you will have to delete the duplicate template in the policy and recreate it.

[AchillesBurden]

@AmolZeroCool
 

The schedule isn't the issue, it is the fact that all job are trying to start at the same time, and hogging the resources. I need a way for duplicate jobs to lock both drives once a job starts.

@Ayush

We have 2 drives and 1 LEO license.

How will deleting the jobs and recreating them resolve the issue? 

Thanks for all the input.

[AmolB]

The schedule isn't the issue, it is the fact that all job are trying to start at the same time, and hogging the resources. I need a way for duplicate jobs to lock both drives once a job starts.

Could you please confirm what is the start time of all the duplicate jobs.

When a job is fired to a drive it acquires the device and if other job tries to

acquire the same device it goes in queued status. So something seems wrong

with the schedule itself.

[AchillesBurden]

All of the duplicates start at the same time, as they were all created by the same policy.

When dup.job1 start it will acquire ibm.drv1, simultaneously dup.job2 will start and it will acquire ibm.drv2 and they both will pend waiting for a free drives as a duplicate job require 2 drives.

[Kiran_Bandi]

Hi AchillesBurden,

You can change the duplicate job templates schedule from policy properties.

Change the schedule according to your requirement and use the tamplate rule as Duplicate all backup sets that were created by backup template using duplicate backup sets template as scheduled.

Regards...

[AchillesBurden]

Hi Kiran,

Thank you for your suggestion, but my policy is already setup in this way.

See attached.

[Kiran_Bandi]

Hi,

I can see only one backup template and one duplicate template in your policy.

I counldn't find any chance to get the problem mentioned by you in the original post with this policy.

Thanks...

[AchillesBurden]

Please see attached for image of issue.

[AchillesBurden]

Yes we do have only 1 backup template and 1 duplicate template, the issue being is that we have multiple job created from this policy and all the backups and duplicate start and run at the same time.

The backups run fine as they only require 1 drive, but the duplicates are failing as describe in the image in my last post.

[Kiran_Bandi]

Even though both the duplicate jobs are created through a single policy, you can make them to start at different times. Change the schedules of the duplicate jobs to make sure that both will not start at a time.

[AchillesBurden]

How can I modify the schedule for the jobs individually when they are all created from a policy and the policy dictates the schedule. I would have to modify the policy schedule which would change the schedule for all jobs.

Please let me know if I am mistaken.

[pkh]

@AchillesBurden - You cannot create all your jobs out of one policy because a policy has only one schedule and all the jobs will clash.  To avoid the jobs clashing, you would need to create different policies with different schedules for your jobs.  To save time, you can copy the policy.

I think there is already an idea asking for the application of schedules to policies just like we apply selection lists to policies

[Kiran_Bandi]

Select option Run according to Schedule and run according to rules of the template.

If you select this option you can select date and time when the template has to run. The template will run according to rule and if it got linked with any other template by using template rules it will run according to that also.

@ Pkh

I think there is already an idea asking for the application of schedules to policies just like we apply selection lists to policies. 

If that option comes available, then we can choose only one schedule for all the jobs created under a policy, Just like only one selection list for a policy. But not now. We can configure different schedules for templates under policy. Correct me if i am wrong.

[pkh]

The user is creating all his jobs from one template.  Your suggestion of changing the template schedule will not work as the jobs that will created out of the one template will have the same schedule and will clash like what he is experiencing now.

The final implementation of the idea is up to the development if it ever got adopted, but the whole idea is that you are not locked into the schedule that you have when the template is created.  You can apply a schedule to a template just like you apply a selection list.

[Colin_Weaver]

Set the duplicate job to start immediately after the backup jobs finishs - and then because it is extremely unlikely that the original backups jobs will all finish at the same time (as I would expect each selection list to be different and potentially backup at slightly different speeds as well) Then it should be extremely rare that the duplicate jobs start st the exact same point in time.

Oh an I have seen what you are trying to do work without any special setting in BE so there may be a problem with your environment.

Have you tried testing two direct to tape jobs (not duplicates) that start at the same time as this should also work - basically even if jobs start at the same time - Backup Exec only sends one request at a time to the library so the second request will queue until it gets acess.

[AchillesBurden]

The backup jobs dont clash. The software should be 'smart' enough to realize that a tape to tape duplicate job requires 2x drives, and should lock both drives upon job startup.

To have to create a different policy per job defeats the purpose of using policies in the first place.