Multiple Backup Policies on the same schedule (retention + frequency)

[smckelvey]

Netbackup 7 Enterprise server in a Windows environment. Backing up to tape only.

Over the years, we've created new backup policies for new equipment, and now the frequencies with the Policies are on different schedules (i.e. our yearly backups run at all different times throughout the year).

All policies get the same schedules as far as frequency and retention:

1. Diffs during the weekdays, retained for 2 weeks
2. Fulls each weekend

• 1x week, retention 1 month
• 1/month, retention 1 Quarter (3 month)
• 1/Quarter, retention 1 year
• 1/Year, retention Infinity

Everything works as expected, but in order to use our tapes a little more efficiently, but I'd like to get each of the policies on the same schedule (i.e. every yearly backup with a retention time of Infinity runs on the same weekend).

The main reason that I say our tapes aren't being used very efficiently is that each day we duplicate the backups from the previous 24 hours to another volume pool, and then send them offsite for storage. The copies get the same retention, multiplexing, etc. As a result, on any given weekend there may be one yearly backup with a retention time of Infinity, which then gets copied to it's own Offsite Tape. So we've ended up with a number of tapes with only 1 or 2 images on them with no expiration and no real way to put more images on them. Same applies to quarterly and monthly backups.

So, my thought process was that by getting each Policy on the same schedule, this would cut down on how many offsite tapes are created each day, as well as the number of tapes with longer retention times and 1 or 2 images on them.

Is there an automatic or manual way of doing this with our existing policies?

[J_H_Is_gone]

you want your yearly backups to happen on the same weekend every year, so the backups with infinity retention all go to the same tape(s) so you have fewer tapes that stay off site forever.

Well it seems to me you already have it.

You must have a job in each of your policies that has a schedule that runs a backup once a year with a retention of infinity.

Why not just find those and set them to run on the same weekend?  Is there an issue with you doing this?

If you could show us an example of say two policies that do a infinity backup we may be able to see what to tell you to change.

[smckelvey]

J.Hinchcliffe:

If I knew more about how Netbackup managed the schedules under the hood, I could probably do some manual back ups to try to bring things in line.

For example, if I create a new policy with each of the schedules and retentions described in my first message (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly backups), will Netbackup always run the Yearly first, or does it go in the order that they appear in the console, or ....?

And if Netbackup runs a "yearly" backup according to the schedules that I've created, but then I do a manual backup at a later date, will Netbackup reset the clock, so to speak (meaning will it wait a year from the one that I ran manually to run another)?

If the 2 questions above were known, I supppose that I could manually run my yearly backups on all policies on a given weekend (which isn't convenient, but doable), and that would hopefully bring everything back in line.

Or, (if I knew the answer to the above questions) could I use the "Go into effect at" setting in each Policy and set each of them tomorrow's date, there by restarting each schedule?

Ideally, if I could assign start date to each schedule (using the Frequency scheduling type). I also looked at changing to the Calendar Schedule Type, but I run into issues scheduling the "quarterly" backups, and I'm also not certain the different schedules wouldn't over lap (i.e. "yearly" is set first Sat. of the year, "monthly" is set to the first Saturday of each month, "weekly" is set to each Saturday: it seems like i'd end up with alot of duplicates of images b/c they'd each be running, no?). The other deterrent is that I have 60 Policies, each with 4 Schedules, and that's alot of time, as well as room for human error.

[J_H_Is_gone]

Lets look at one example.

You should NOT mix Frequency and Calendar in the same schedule.  They get mixed up a bit.

So lets say you have your dailies in a schedule with Frequency

and you have the fulls with long retention set to Calendar schedule. (but watch your open window - which is really the window the job is allowed to go active.  With Calendar  Friday night to midnight is one day - Saturday morning at 12:01 is another day the job may try to run again)

So we start with weekly to run every Saturday.  This works great.

Now we add the Monthly to happen the first Saturday of the month.

NB will say I have 2 schedules that want to run. It will look at them and say, I ran the weekly one last Saturday, but it has been 4 weeks from the last time I ran the monthly so I will run that one.

Now you add the quarterly.

NB will say I have 3 schedules that want to run.  I says it ran the weekly last week, and it ran the monthly 4 weeks ago, but it has been 12 weeks from the last quartley I will run that one.

Same thing with the yearly.  The backup that has had the longest length of time from the last time it ran should win the right to run.

[smckelvey]

about how Netbackup deals with Frequency scheduling. I must have missed it in the admin guide.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH8791

And while not mentioned explicity, it appears through testing that the "yearly" schedule (or least frequent schedule) will run first when the policy is first created.

Based on the above, I can run a manual "yearly" backup of each of the policies and that should restart the frequency calculations in Netbackup. Not ideal, but an option.

I'm going to test a policy this weekend by deactivating using the to "Go into effect at" setting, on the off chance that it will essentially reset the clock relative to starting with the "yearly" backup again. Let yout know what I find.