What is the best way to automatically cancel a backup job when no media has been inserted in the drive?

[Paul_Vickers]

Have Backup Exec 12.5


HAve a backup job that is scheduled to run at 8:00 PM.

Sometimes staff forget to put the tape in, so the job fires of at 8:pm, and sits there waiting for media all night, and then when a staff member comes along the next morning and puts a tape in, the job start doing the backup.

The backup then runs durring business hours which is bad, and on the wrong tape which is bad.


Is there a way of stoping the backup job from waiting for media all night, and canceling the job or something?

[Hemant_Jain]

Hi Paul

You can go to the schedule settings of the job and reduce the time window from 24 hours to 12 hours and the job would cancel itself at 8 AM, if it doesn't get a media. You can also limit the availability window of selection list, by going to "Priority and Availability" tab in Backup job properties, in order to limit the availability of selection list for 12 hours only. That should work for you. You can follow any of the above methods to get it working.

Pleasse mark it a solution, if this is useful.
Thanks
Hemant

[Optimus_Prime]

Hi Paul

A backup job not completed within a specific amount of time can be automatically canceled by using  Automatic Cancellation feature of Backup Exec.

Go to Tools > Options > Priority and Availability >  Check Enable automatic cancellation for this selection list > Cancel backup job if not completed within (desired time)  example 3 HOURS.

or

you can create or edit your existing backup job by going to Job Monitor > Select the backup job > right click > select edit selection list > under priority and availability > Check Enable automatic cancellation for this selection list > Cancel backup job if not completed within (desired time)  example 3 HOURS.

Note: Set your time window of your backup job on the schedule as well to specify the period of time during which a job can begin. For example 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM only so it can begin at or anytime after 8:00 PM and cannot start after 10:00 PM.

Please mark it as solution if this resolve your issu. Thanks.

[Paul_Vickers]

I had previously tried to edit the Jobs schedule to limit its start time.

The start time is set to start no earlier than 8pm, and no later then 9 pm.
Never the less it still sat there waiting for media all night untill someone put a tape in the following morning, then off it went.
screen shot here: http://www.wuala.com/vickerstek/ScreenShots/BEscreenshot1.JPG

So, I have now changed the alert auto respond for media insert alert to cancel after 2 hours.
see screen shot here: http://www.wuala.com/vickerstek/ScreenShots/BEscreenshot2.JPG


Hopefully that will fix the problem.
Are there any other consequences or gotcha's of seting the alert auto response for media insert to cancel after 2 hours?

[Optimus_Prime]

Please let us know how's your backup after doing some changes.

[Ken_Putnam]

yeah

Once the job asks for a different tape, the job has "started" even though nothing has been written to a tape yet

Change the reply as you indicate should solve your problem, and I can see no gotchas.  If youo manually run a job, and get the insert scratch prompt, you will be changing the tape within 2 hour, right?  ;)