Scheduling nightmare - please help !

[deani]

I've thought long and hard on this one and I'm not even sure if it's possible, but do any of you guys out there have any idea how I might be able to achieve the following:

I want to schedule a server for a full backup on Sunday to a file system device, let's call it Server-Full (so far so good) then the following week Mon-Fri run diffs to a file system device called Server-wk1, the following week runs diffs (note: No Full on Sunday) to a file system device called Server-wk2, week three to Server-wk3 and finally week four to Server-wk4. At which point the whole thing starts again by overwriting Server-Full with a full backup. So we have a 28 day cycle with one full backup followed by 4 weeks of diffs each week appending to a different file system device.

The full backup is no real problem, just create a full backup to run this Sunday and set to re-schedule 28 days later. It's the diff job I'm having problems with. Even if I create four separate jobs, how can I get a week of diffs to re schedule for 28 days later ?

It may be that I'm trying to achieve the impossible, or I'm missing the obvious but does anybody have a clue ?

By the way we are running BAB 11.1

Cheers
Ian

 

[Cyklops]

This a difficult one with ARCserve, you'll always have to workaround because this 'one-month's-differential is not build into the program.
Maybe you can try this:

create 5 File System Devices, leave them all <blank media> and put all them in one Device Group.

create a single job using the '5-day weekly differential, full backup on Friday' rotation schedule. Use the created Device group for destination. Select 'append' from the selection right above the 'rotation rules' section in the rotation schedule screen.

Go to the 'Calendar' section in the rotation schedule screen. Leave the monthly full backup where it is and set all other full backups to OFF by right clicking the day
(I know you have to do this for a period of months or maybe years but I think it's the only way).

Once this job is submitted it will created a single media pool. change the 'retention time (days)' criteria from 6 to 28 days. Leave the other criteria unchanged.

test the schedule by choosing a single file or directory and change the system dates to see how ARcserve will behave

Again, it's a workaround,but you can do it all in a single job.

hope this can be of any use

regards

 

[Padzik]

Hi,
I think, it could be done by creating 5 custom jobs (not rotation)(one job for full backup and 4 jobs for diffs - each week one job). You create 5 File System Devices (1. Server-Full, 2. Server-wk1, 3. Server-wk2....) and 5 device groups for them. For the full job you must set the schedule: Custom schedule - Repeat method and then you choose Custom with Repeat interval "1 Month with Exclude days Monday to Saturday. It should be all for the full job. For the differential jobs, you create first job and you must set the schedule: Custom schedule - Repeat method - Week(s) of Month and First, you must also specify which day it should be, for eg. Monday (for the diff backup Server-wk2 - you set Second and so on...) I think this should work for you. Am I right or not? Padzik

 

[deani]

Cyklops - Many thanks for that, I think you may be on the right tracks there. As you suggest I'll give it a try. I think I'm resigned to the fact that there will have to be some manual intervention on a regular basis. I had the idea of setting up one diff job Mon-Fri and editing it's destination at the beginning of each week. If your idea works at least I can plan for weeks if not months ahead (or at least for as far as I can be bothered to edit the calender)I have around 40 servers to backup using this method, so as yo can guess the esier and more foolproof the better.

Paszik - Thanks for your reply, but as I understand it the Custom Schedule - Week(s) of Month only allows you to schedule a single day withing the first, second, third...etc week of the month. I need to be able to run diffs ALL week. Maybe Ive got it wrong ?

If anyone else has any ideas please feel free to contribute.

Thanks

 

[deani]

Padzik - Sorry for spelling your name wrong above, it was a typo.

 

[Padzik]

Don't worry about the typo Oh sorry, my fault, I am the one who got it wrong.

 

[deani]

Cyklops or anyone else who can help - I have tried your suggestion and it is very nearly there except for one thing...

Firstly I have chosen the 7 day diff cycle, full backup on Sunday, diffs set to append. So the rotation rules are:
Sunday - Full - Overwrite
Monday - Diff - Overwrite
Tues-Sat - Diff - Append

At the start of the cycle the Full backup (Sunday) runs to media1, as would be expected.
On Monday the diff cycle starts and runs correctly to media2 Mon-Sat.
Having edited the calender no full backup runs on the next Sunday. So far everything as expected.

Now is the part that I think isn't working correctly, according to the job log the next media for Monday(2nd week) should be blank therefore it should overwrite a media from the scratch set ot format a blank. However, it continues to APPEND to media2 that was being used for diffs the previous week. As I understand it this shouldn't happen as Monday should always overwrite.

So I end up with a full on media1 and then a month's worth of diffs on media2, when really I want the diffs spread over 4 different media (media2-media5) one for each week.

I did also try it with the 5 day diff cycle, same result.

Any ideas ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Cyklops]

Can you check the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ComputerAssociates\BrightStor ARCserve Backup\Base\Task\Backup\EnableMediaMaximization

is it set to 0 ot to 1 ??

regards

 

[deani]

Cyklops - Thanks for getting back to me. The key was set to 1, I have now tried again with the key set to 0 with exactly the same result. I just cannot understand why it refuses to overwrite on Mondays !

I really do appreciate all your help. If you have any other ideas I would be very grateful.

Regards
Ian

 

[Cyklops]

Maybe it is the retention criteria (because appending to media is always allowed) or it is this backing up to disk devices. I tested this with the build-in simulation utility (simulate.exe) and it worked fine.

regards