What determines when a backup schedule is due to run?

[NBMike]

Hi, please can anyone help explain..when a job has multiple schedules, how does Netbackup 5.1 work out which schedule is due to run?

I have a job with 3 schedules with different frequencies:
Daily_Incremental - freq. 1 day, M-Th 8pm-8am
Weekly_Full - freq. 4 days, Fri 8pm-Mon 8am
Monthly_Full - freq. 4 weeks, Fri 8pm-Mon 8am
Quarterly_Full - freq. 13 weeks, Fri 8pm-Mon 8am.

You'll notice all my fulls have exactly the same window. They were set up this way on the understanding that Netbackup will always give priority to the schedule with the lowest frequency, if it is due.

I have a number of backups set up like this, on different sites, and on looking through my backup history (client backups report) I've noticed something unusual. I've noticed that if a quarterly full backup runs, the next *monthly* full backup will not run until 4 weeks after that quarterly backup....regardless of when the last monthly backup ran. So if my last monthly backup ran 2 weeks ago, and the last quarterly backup ran today...the next monthly backup would be 4 weeks from now, 4 weeks after the quarterly (whereas I would have expected it to be 2 weeks from now, ie. 4 weeks after the last *monthly*).

Is this expected behaviour? When deciding if a monthly backup is due, why is Netbackup basing its decision on when the last quarterly backup ran, rather than the last monthly backup?

If anyone can shed some light on how Netbackup decides which schedule is due, I'd be grateful!

Regards

Mike

 

[Stumpr]

Your theory sounds correct. However, since I have not created more than 2 full backups within a schedule; I would create the $INSTALL_DIR\Veritas\Netbackup\logs\bpsched folder and examine the logfile. Perhaps it could shed some light.

As a work around,
Consider simply changing the expiration date on the monthly full once a quarter.
Or use a calendar schedule for end of quarter and exclude the monthly full for that weekend.

Bob Stump
Just because the VERITAS documentation states a certain thing does not make it a fact and that is truth.

 

[comtec17]

Do a search in this forum for schedule. There are other threads with the same issue as you will find with explanations of frequency based schedules.

 

[oskhan]

I have also faced this problem before, I worked around it in the following manner

I usually do complete backups every SATURDAY. For my monthly backups I have specified the first of every month(regardless of the day). In the rest of the schedules(belonging to the same policy) including the one that takes full backups every SAT , I have added the first of each month to the exclude list.

With this, everything works like a charm

PS: Your idea of frequency based scheduling is correct. however it would make your life a lot easier if you have different time slots for your schedules