Questions about Schedules

[brian_s]

Hi. We are a brand new client.
(Netbackup 5.1 AIX 5.2)
We want to set up schedules (each has different retentions) as follows:
DAILY
WEEKLY - every monday
MONTHLY - first day of the month
YEARLY july 1.

If I set the DAILY to run everyday except monday, won't I get 2 backups on the first of the month?
(the daily, and then the monthly)? Is there a way for the daily schedule to say: "Every day, except monday, unless it is the first of the month", and the Weekly to say "every monday except for the first of the month". (without specifying specific calendar dates, of course).
Also, the only way I could set the yearly was to explictly list July 1,2005 July 1 2006, etc. Is there an easier way to this?
Thank you!

[Kezic_0]

Run a test of this on your systems but I believe that NBU checks each schedule in a policy and will only run one schedule.

I don't remember if it picks the schedule with the longer retention or the schedule that has not run for the longer period of time (it runs the Weekly vs Daily or Monthly vs Weekly)

I will try to test this later if I have time.

Hope that helps

[Stumpr2]

From the sysadmin guide:
NOTES:
If more than one schedule for this policy is due for a client, the backups from the schedule that is
backed up least often are added first.

I use frequency based scheduling and I create windows of opportunity that are exactly the same for Weekly (1 month retention) and Monthly (6 months retention).
If both schedules are due AND the window of opportunity is true then the monthly backup will run because it has had a longer time elapsed since it was last ran.Message was edited by:
Bob Stump

[brian_s]

Thank you both for answers. I am still a bit unclear. ( I am newbie newbie)
Bob - are both your weekly and monthly FULL backups?
We are only doing full backups, just with different retentions. OUr Start/end window is also the same for each schedule.
I suppose I am looking for a general rule for NBU Scheduling - I found the admin guide a bit unclear.
Would this be rule be accurate, and if not, could you help me formulate the general rule?

"When 2 or more schedules, regardless of retention or backup type (full or incremental), and regardless of schedule type (frequecy or calendar)come due at the same time, the schedule that has had the most time elapsed since it was last run - will run, and the other schedules will not run. Even if there is enough time in the start/end window for more than one schedule, only one will run."

Or is it in fact based on backup type? Will 2 full backups run one after the other? ( I do not want this).

I am grateful to all for your advice!

[Stumpr2]

The schedule keys on longest elapsed time for the last sucessful backup.
once a month the monthly criteria is met and the job is scheduled.
When the weekly criteria is met it does not get scheduled because more time has elapsed for the monthly schedule.
It kindly excuses itself and allows the monthly to get the job done because the monthly does not have the opportunities that the weekly gets.
The weekly can run every week so it sits back and lets the monthly do the job.
The daily is never run on because the weekly and the monthly both have a greater elapsed time than the 1 day that the daily has.
Only one schedule will run if the windows are exactly the same.

I don't know about the calendar scheduling. It has issues with midnight splitting the days. It uses 00:00 to 24:00 as a day. My backup environments use 18:00 to 06:00 as a backup day. I tried it and went back to frequency.

As long as you have identical windows of opportunity (start/stop) the frequency will determine which of the two will run. It does that by elapsed time since the last sucessful backup.
Obviously if your monthly runs once a month then when the month has passed it will have the longest time elapsed since its last successful backup and will have priority over the weekly.
Only one will run. Unless you are using multistreaming then each stream will go through the process and you may have a stream done by a monthly schedule alongside a stream with a weekly schedule.

[brian_s]

Thank you BOB! That was very helpful!!!

[Bill_Weldon]

Question for you are you using calendar based schedules? if so simply set up exclude dates in the 3rd tab to keep the weekly from running when the monthly and annual run and the same for the monthly and annual. Now granted this requires some maintance on a yearly basis to continue to make sure that the exclude dates are kept up to date. But depending upon the size of your enterprise that may not be an issue.

[TempoVisitor]

As a matter of fact, if there are 2 exact start windows for 2 different schedules in the same policy, NetBackkup will :

- do the FULL backup and not the INCR backup if the choice is between these to sched types.
- do the Sched Backup WITH THE HIGHEST RETENTION LEVEL !!! if it has the choice between same sched types.

Usualy, FULL have a RET LEV higher than INCR, MONTHLY have a higher RET LEV than WEEKLY ... and so.

But bewaren the calculation is made on the INDEX of the RET LVL ... means if you modify an existing level to a different retention period, you might experience a WEEKLY backup to be prioritar on a MONTHLY one.

Example :
Default Ret Lvl
0 1w
1 2w
2 3w
3 1m
4 2m
5 3m

You modified the 5th Ret Lvl to have an exact 4weeks retention.
0 1w
1 2w
2 3w
3 1m
4 2m
5 4w
Then if you specify in ur policy schedules :
WEEKLY FULL - Ret 4weeks
MONTHLY FULL - Ret 2months

As 4weeks points to RET LVL 5, your WEEKLY FULL is prioritar on your MONTHLY FULL with only a RET LVL 4.

Kerkael

[Stumpr2]

Interesting. This is the first time I heard of NetBackup assuming the retention level index indicates a sequential pattern. And also the first time I heard that NetBackup considers using retention levels for prioritizing schedules. Retention level #9 could cause a problem because it is permanently fixed to infinity. But, there is a lot about NetBackup that I am still learning. Please tell me where you found this information

[TempoVisitor]

Hya

My apologies for everybody here !!!!

This comes from experience while working on NBU 3.4

I had modified a ret lvl and had the problem of a bkp that took place instead of another one.

I just made the tests in order to be sure I said the truth ... well I was wrong !

Priority is indeed based on the frequency : the higher the frequency parameter (2H higher than 1H) the highest priority.
In the case of identical frequencies, RETRO-alphabetical order gets priority, without a regard to the type of schedule.

Test Protocole :
I did my tests with 2 or 3 schedules, named 'a' 'b' 'c' with variable frequence 1H or 1W, with variable Ret Levl.
Fast small backups on disk, 24hours window , restarted twice the bprd to be sure :
bprdreq -startsched
bprdreq -startsched
bprdreq -startsched
Have a look at the activity monitor to see which sched is done.
bpimagelist -idonly -hoursago 1
bpexpdate -backupid policy_11088622xxx -d 0 -force
bpexpdate -backupid policy_11088622yyy -d 0 -force
bpexpdate -backupid policy_11088622zzz -d 0 -force
Modify the sched, and test again ...

Here are the results :
---------------------------------------------
aincr 1H RL2 + bfull 1H RL2
bfull aincr nothing

bincr 1H RL2 + afull 1H RL2
bincr afull nothing

=>Independance of the sched type
Priority RETRO-alphabetic B>A
----------------------------------
aincr 1H RL2 + bfull 1H RL2 + cfull 1W RL2
cfull nothing

afull 1W RL2 + bincr 1H RL2 + cfull 1H RL2
afull nothing

=>Exclusive Priority of the frequency
----------------------------------
afull 1H RL2 + bincr 1H RL2 + cfull 1H RL2
bincr afull nothing

=>Independance of the sched type
Priority RETRO-alphabetic B>A
----------------------------------

afull 1H RL2 + bincr 1H RL2 + cfull 1H RL4
bincr afull nothing

=>Complete Independance from the Ret Lvl
=>Independance of the sched type
Priority RETRO-alphabetic B>A
----------------------------------

Next to be sure with only Full Scheds !

afull 1H RL2 + cfull 1H RL2
cfull nothing

afull 1H RL2 + cfull 2H RL2
cfull nothing

afull 1H RL4 + cfull 2H RL2
cfull nothing

afull calendar RL4 + cfull calendar RL2
cfull nothing

afull calendar RL2 + cfull calendar RL4
cfull nothing

=>Complete Independance from the Ret Lvl
=>Exclusive Priority od the Frequency
=>Independance of Method (Frequency or Calendar) !!!
Priority RETRO-alphabetic B>A
----------------------------------





Kerkael