Scheduling Scheme For 5 Weeks Of Backups

[zoeythecat]

HI All,

I want to be able to run jobs for 14 servers over a montly period. Sometimes there is a 5 week period. I'm trying to figure this out how this will work. For example, if I set the 5th week backup job to run on the last day of the month and the differential jobs (week 5 jobs) to run from Tues - Sat (for this month the last sunday is on the 30th and Monday is the 31st. If I set the differentials to run on Mon - Sat the Tues - Sat dates will try and pull in the dates from the prior week based on the "last" setting for last week of the month. If I tried setting this up for a 4 week rotation, then when the last week of the month comes, based on the backupexec calendar, there would be no backups for that week.

Couple questions:

(1) Does anyone run the backup jobs in a similar way (over a 5 week rotation period)?
(2) Do you recommend creating one backup job for multiple servers? Or one backup job for each server (this would of course be several backu jobs throughout the month)? I have one server that will backup 150 gig over a week, another server that will backup 75GIG and yet another server that backs up 50 gig. The rest of the servers are smaller (estimated 1gig - 10gig). What would you recommend I do based on these stats?


I'm a newbie and trying to figure this all out.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to any thoughts/recommendations/suggestions.

 

[Zelandakh]

1. No.
2. No, one server for multiple servers split into multiple jobs.

I'd suggest a single server (prob the one with most data) is used with the remote agent to pull everything. That is about 350GB - a single LTO4 will give you plenty of headroom for expansion there.

 

[zoeythecat]

Zelandakh,

Thanks for the reply. We do have a 5TB solution (LTO2). I created 25 (200GIG Virtual Tapes) and will be utilizing 5 weeks of backups. I get requests all the time to restore back from a month. The problem for me right now is when I submit the job (i'm just testing a couple of jobs), even though I see the job in the "Job Monitor" column, I do not see a "time" displayed. Should I not see the time the jobs are submitted in the Job Monitor window? If I right click on the job and go into "Properties" or "Job Summary" I can see the time it is scheduled, but not in the window itself. Any thoughts on that?

Thx

 

[Zelandakh]

It should show it for sure.

 

[zoeythecat]

It does not. Thanks for your reply.

Perhaps some other Backupexec users out there (I can't be the only one) see the same thing??

Thx

 

[zoeythecat]

Figured it out. I did a little bit more digging and found out if I did this:

Job Monitors Tab
System Summary
* Ths showed a gui window with a "scheduled Jobs" buttion that had the 4 jobs I scheduled. I clicked on this and now I can see the scheduled jobs with the start time.

 

[lsprowls]

On the Job Setup screen, create a new Policy. In this Policy create two Templates, one each for the weekly backup and monthly backup. Make the backup Schedule for both templates the same: for example, every Friday at 8:00pm.

Once you have your two Templates, Create a Rule in the same Policy. In this Rule, state that if the start times conflict, use the monthly backup instead of the weekly backup. This way, the monthly backup will run the last Friday of the month regardless of the number of weeks in the month.

 

[zoeythecat]

Isprowls,

Thanks for your suggestions.

The problem is not with the "full" backup running throughout the month. The problem is with the differential jobs that have to run during that week. I worked with Symantecs tech support and their development team is going to redesign a portion of the calendar similar to the way the calendar I used in Netvault.

I appreciate your input.