MSSQL policy - Weekly and Monthly schedules running at the same time but only using one retention.

[Guinch]

I have a MSSQL policy configured with three Automatic schedules and three Application schedules. 

Daily Schedule:

Automatic schedule = 7pm to 8am.

Application schedule = 7pm to 8am with a retention of 1 week

Weekly Schedule:

Automatic schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday every week with exception of the last Friday of each month.

Application schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday every week with exception of the last Friday of each month with retention of 1 month.

Monthly Schedule:

Automatic schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday on the last Friday of each month.

Application schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday  on the last Friday of each month with retention of 3 months.

They appear in the following order in the policy:

Daily

Monthly

Weekly

The daily runs OK and retains data for the intended 1 week.

However as the weekly and monthly application schedules are open at the same time is seems to always pick the monthly schedule (the first that appears in the list). So when the weekly backup runs it is retained for 3 months instead of the intended 1 month.

I have searched and searched and cannot find any hints as to how this should be configured so that I can have all three schedules in the same policy. Is this possible? If so how should it be confgured?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Pangal]

In our setup there are different policies for sql for different retention

[Pangal]

Also retention for automatic and application schedule should be same which is not possibe in database polices

[RamNagalla]

Weekly Schedule:

Automatic schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday every week with exception of the last Friday of each month.

Automatic schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday every week with exception of the last Friday of each month with retention of 1 month.

Monthly Schedule:

Automatic schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday on the last Friday of each month.

Automatic schedule = 7pm Friday to 8am Monday every week with exception of the last Friday of each month with retention of 3 months.

see the bold highlighted above... does it typo.. or is that how its configured?

[Guinch]

Yes there were a few typos there. Now corrected. Apologies.

[Guinch]

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by this. The retention is the same for Auto and App schedules but I didn't thing the Auto was taken into account. Only the App sched is used.

[Guinch]

So is there no way to have all schedules in the same policy. Seems a bit messy to have multiple policies for different retentions. Most other policy types (windows, VMWare, etc) seem to be able to handle this OK.

If Application schedules had the option to set a Calendar schedule type then this would be possible, yes? So why would Application schedules not have this option? Is it just another NB "feature" or is there an valid reason for not having this option on App schedules?

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Have a look at this TN:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH90544 
DOCUMENTATION: How to create a single MS-SQL-Server NetBackup policy which contains multiple schedules with different retention levels

[RamNagalla]

yep.. 

extract from above T/N in Marianne comment.

"Please note that it is very important the two "Backup Policy" schedules do not overlap. If they do overlap, unpredictable results can occur, and backups could fail to take place or could expire prematurely." 

so edjust the schedule times and see how it works..

[Guinch]

Thanks for your help everyone.

We have set up a second policy for Monthly backups with 3 month retentions.

Still seems a little messy to me but if that is the way it needs to be then thats fine.

Thanks again.