Scheduling Jobs

[JDR07]

Is it possible to configure backup jobs to run as each one finishes rather than trying to estimate when a job will finish before strting another.

In other words, if I have two jobs can I setup the schedule that will start the second job only when the first job finishes?

When we talk to support they keep telling us that jobs are scheduled based on times rather than events.  In other words they are saying that if job 1 starts at 8:00 and is estimated to run for 2 hours then the second job should be scheduled to start at 10:00 or later.  That works fine assuming that your backups will always run in the same timeframe, however reality is that backup volume, network traffic etc. can greatly affect the time to completion.

Surely there has to be a way to stop and start jobs based on events.

Thanks

[Steve_Samoransk]

Hi, Yes there is. If you create a policy for the jobs you can have rules for the policy. Have Template A run the have Template B Run after Template A is finished. (run the policy wizard)

Thanks

[JDR07]

Thanks, however the Symantec tech has told us that this does not work because job 1 is a differential and job 2 is a full backup and both jobs use different selection lists.

Your Ideas!

Thanks

[Rick_Eveleigh]

Symantec Tech is correct.

For you it also depends what you are backing up to. If both jobs are backing up to a single drive tape unit then configure them to start just 5 minutes apart. The second one will kick off and queue waiting for the drive to become free, then start when the first one has finished.

If backing up to Disk or a multiple drive tape unit then can't you run them simultaneously? We have customers running up to 7 backup to disk jobs at once on very standard hardware.

Hope that helps

Rick

[Ken_Putnam]

You can also use BEMCMD as a POST command of the first job to kick off the second job

[Todd_Henry]

Interesting...I am having a complete different issue, but maybe somewhat similar.  We have 1 Selection List, 1 Policy, and 2 templates. 1 template controls both the daily differentials and 1 template controls the weekly full backups.  Everyday my differentials are as large as my weekly fulls.  Betwen 500-550GB of "changed" data daily which is hard to believe.

1. Does anyone know if policies similar to JDR07's have issues?
2. Does Anti-virus/real-time scanning play a part with the archive bit or modify date.

Any suggestions?