Netbackup schedule :(

[HHarini]

NBU 6.5 MP4.

We have 2 schedules for the weekend Full backup.

1. Saturday 22:00 to Sunday 11:00 (contains 150 client)
2. Sunday 2:00 to Sunday 11:00 (contains 110 client)

We can run max 48 backup jobs at a time (12 drives * 4 Multiplex = 48 ) and rest goes to queue and it takes 13 hours to clear all the queued jobs. So I kept the window as 22:00 to 11:00 hours to avoid the 196 errors.
But the schedule starts the backup second time for some clients for those backup completes within the window.  For example XYZ client in the schedule 1.

Full backup XYZ starts at Saturday 22:00 hours and completes at Sunday 3:00 hours. But the schedule again starts the full backup at 4:00 hours for same servers. I am getting 2 sets of Full backup for some servers. It happens only with the Schedule 1.

How to avoid this situation?
Is there anything I need to change in the schedule?

[Marianne]

This problem has been appearing over the years with different NBU versions with no clear reason as to why this is happening (first time I've seen this was with NBU 3.4...).

Two things you can try:

1. Recreate the policy. (I cannot remember if copying the policy to a new name is good enough or if policy should be totally new to prevent any corruption from being copied across.)

2. Remove client STREAMS* files under /usr/openv/netbackup/db/images/<client-name> before next full backup is due.  I've had similar experience where cleanup of STREAMS files forced them to be recreated when next schedule was due and solved the problem. If you delete them prior to Inc backup, your backups will be full until a Full schedule is run again (same with creating new policy).

[Andy_Welburn]

If smaller than the backup window then the backup can start again withning that window. (Altho' it seems unlikely if the jobs are starting 1 hour after they finished first time around - unless your frequency is set to one hour!)

Following on from Mariannes suggestion - a copy of a policy tends to copy the 'corruption' so if you try to recreate the policy I would do so from scratch in order to be safe.

[HHarini]

Thanks Marianne and Andy.

We have checked both Sunday and Saturday in "Recurring Week days" in the Calender schedule.

Is this happening due to that ?

Attached the screen shot.

Thanks,
Parandhaman

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Most definitely! You are telling the scheduler to backup on Saturday and Sunday.

For daily and weekly backups, rather use Frequency based scheduling. Set frequency to every 6 days - backup window can stay the same. (6 days will cater for possible 'schedule creeping' due to long periods in queue.)

[varunprakash]

Yes. as per your schedule, backup of your first policy starts by 10:00 PM and runs until completes the backup. If the backup completes before 11:00 AM (Sunday) then again it will kick off for sunday's schedule because you have mentioned the backup window from (10: 00PM to 11:00 Am)

I can suggest  you to change the backup window time for the schedules.

[Andy_Welburn]

then remove the ticks in the Sunday column - NetBackup will then start on the Saturday (22:00) & it's window of opportunity will be open until 11:00 on the Sunday. As Marianne states you are telling NetBackup to run on the Saturday and the Sunday within this schedule.

It may be easier to use frequency based schedules - we only use calendar based for our monthly backups where it is easier to select "last Saturday of the month" etc.

***EDIT***
The use of frequency based backups can be flexible:
Frequency Based Backup – It’s not a bad thing

[HHarini]

It's working fine after the changes you suggested.

Thank you so much.!!!