Data Protection and Scheduling - CommCell® Console

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Scheduling

Most data protection jobs use traditional backups or snapshots are scheduled. The frequency of scheduled jobs should be based on the RPO times. For a 24 hour RPO, jobs are scheduled to run daily. If a four hour RPO is required, then jobs should be scheduled to run every four hours.

Different types of jobs can be scheduled to run on different days. The traditional weekly full and daily incremental is the most common schedule, but not always the best. Consider scheduling jobs based on RTO, RPO and how frequently data should be sent off-site.

For example, if data is being backed up to disk and DASH copied to disk at a DR location, jobs can be scheduled to run more frequently throughout the day to shrink RPOs and send data off-site faster. If the disk data needs to be consolidated to tape on a monthly basis, a schedule of monthly full and daily incremental with the monthly full being Aux copied to tape may be an adequate solution. Another example is when performing a backup directly to tape. A schedule of nightly full backups or weekly full and nightly differential can be implemented. Both methods may shrink RTO times.

Auxiliary copies are as important to properly schedule as data protection jobs. If the corporate requirement is a four hour RPO for critical databases, and the database backup running every four hours is DASH copied only once a day, it can lead to an SLA not being met in case of a disaster, where the primary disk library is lost.

Commvault^® software uses a standard scheduler for scheduling all operations within the CommCell^® environment. The following is a list of operations that can be scheduled:

Data protection operations
Data recovery operations
CommServe DR backup
Reports
Data Aging

Schedule Frequency

Jobs can be configured to run once or repeat based on setting the following frequencies:

Daily – jobs are set to start and end at a certain time each day. A repeat interval can be configured to have the job run multiple times per day with an hour and minute recurrence interval.
Weekly – jobs are configured to run on specific days of the week or set to repeat every fixed number of weeks. Exceptions can also be added, for example if a job is to be scheduled to run every Friday except for the last Friday of the month, set the weekly schedule to run on Friday, repeat every week, and set an exception for the last Friday of the month.
Monthly – jobs are configured to run based on the following criteria:
- On the first, second, third, fourth or last day of a month.
- The day of the month specified can be a day of the week, specific day, weekday or weekend day.
Yearly – jobs are configured to run based on the following:
- Specific day of a specific month.
- On the first, second, third, fourth or last day of a specific month.
- The day of the month specified can be a day of the week, day, weekday or weekend day.
Automatic – schedules are used for protecting end user workstations or automatically scheduling specific database application log backups, such as SQL or Oracle.
Continuous – is a schedule in which an interval between job is defined.
- The first job is executed
- Starting from that point on, as soon as it completes, it waits for the time interval to elapse and launches the job again.

Independent Schedules

Right-click the subclient | Click Backup | Job Initiation section

Jobs can be scheduled to run independently. An independent schedule is created at the client level, and is used only by that client. It is initiated from the Job Initiation section of a job. All backup or auxiliary copy options can be defined for the job.

There are several schedule patterns that are used, but one frequently used for independent jobs is the One-Time pattern. It executes an on-demand job later, without having to manually launch it.

Schedule Policies

Expand Policies | Right-click Schedule Policies | Click New Schedule Policy

Jobs can be scheduled to run by using schedule policies. A schedule policy is a set of rules containing one or many schedules. This set of schedules is deployed to multiple systems or storage policies requiring a similar schedule pattern for backups or auxiliary copies. This helps in managing and controlling the schedules in bulk.

At any time, subclients or storage policies can be added or removed from a schedule policy. It is also possible to manually execute a schedule from the schedule policy, which simultaneously launches backups on all systems associated with it.

To effectively manage your jobs, use schedule policies whenever possible.

Schedule and Schedule Policy Settings

The following table displays the schedule and schedule policy settings:

Schedule Type:	One Time This is useful when a specific backup has been requested at some point in the future. Instead of remembering to initiate the job at the requested time, you can just schedule it using the One Time option.
Select date and time of one time job	Specifies to the minute when you want a job to start. Select the date through a drop-down calendar box. From the date box, use the inner arrows to switch between months and the outer arrows to switch between years.
Options - Time Zone	Specifies the time zone. By default, the time zone used is the one for the CommServe^® server. If you have clients in other time zones use this option to set the correct time zone for the client.

Schedule Type:	Daily This allows you to set a daily recurring backup. This is useful when the same backup type is required every day. You can also use the start date and repeat options to configure unique scheduling options, such as a daily schedule which starts on Tuesday and repeats every 7 days. This actually results in a weekly backup every Tuesday.
Start Time	Sets the start time for the job.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Start	Defaults to today's date. Specifies a specific future date for the schedule to begin. Select the date through a drop-down calendar box. From the date box, use the inner arrows to switch between months and the outer arrows to switch between years.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Never End	Makes this schedule permanent.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End By	Terminates the schedule after a specific date and time.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End After	Determines how many times the job runs before the schedule is terminated.
Repeat Every nn Days	Defaults to 1. You can change this option to specify how many days the job will wait before it runs again.
Repeat Every nn Hours and xx Minutes	Determines how frequently the job is run. This is useful for frequent backup requirements such as transaction logs or point-in-time incremental backups. For example, you can schedule a daily transaction log backup to begin at 7:00 AM and repeats every 1 hour until 8:00 PM.
Exceptions Button	Excludes a particular day. The options are: first, second, third, fourth, or last day and the day can be selected as a day of the week, weekend day, week day, or day. A drop-down calendar view displays the days of the month where any day can be checked to be excluded. This offers tremendous flexibility in the scheduler. For example, you can schedule a weekly full backup to run every Friday except for the last Friday of the month. The last Friday full that runs in the month can then have special attributes associated with it such as isolating the job on specific media or automatically exporting the tape after the job completes.
Options - Time Zone	Defaults to the time zone used for the CommServe^® server. If you have clients in other time zones use this option to set the correct time zone for the client.

Schedule Type:	Weekly This defines when one or multiple days in a week a job will run. This schedule repeats itself on a weekly basis. This can be useful for backups that you want to run multiple days in a week except for certain days. For example, you can schedule incremental backup jobs to run Monday through Thursday but not Friday through Sunday.
Start Time	Sets the start time for the job.
One These Days	Determines which days you want the job to run each week.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Start	Defaults to today's date. You can select a specific future date for the schedule to begin. The date can be selected through a drop-down calendar box. In the date box use the inner arrows to switch between months and the outer arrows to switch between years.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Never End	Makes this schedule permanent.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End By	Terminates the schedule after a specific date and time.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End After	Determines how many times the job runs before the schedule is terminated.
Repeat Every nn Weeks	Specifies how many weeks are skipped before the weekly schedule is run again. This defaults to one week.
Repeat Every nn Hours and xx Minutes	Determines how frequently the job is run. This is useful for frequent backup requirements such as transaction logs or point-in-time incremental backups. For example, you can schedule a daily transaction log backup to begin at 7:00 AM and repeat every 1 hour until 8:00 PM.
Exceptions Button	Excludes a particular day. The options are: first, second, third, fourth, or last day and the day can be selected as a day of the week, weekend day, week day, or day. A drop-down calendar view displays the days of the month where any day can be checked to be excluded. This offers tremendous flexibility in the scheduler. For example, you can schedule a weekly full backup to run every Friday except for the last Friday of the month. The last Friday full that runs in the month can then have special attributes associated with it such as isolating the job on specific media or automatically exporting the tape after the job completes.
Options - Time Zone	Defaults to the time zone of the CommServe^® server. If you have clients in other time zones use this option to set the correct time zone for the client.

Schedule Type:	Monthly Monthly backup schedules are useful for special backup types such as month end or quarter end operations. Very specific schedules can be set up to meet corporate and government compliance requirements. The monthly schedule options are fully customized to accomplish these requirements.
Start Time	Specifies the time a job begins.
On Day	Specifies a particular day of the month you want the job to run.
On The	Specifies a particular day of the month you want the job to run. The options are: first, second, third, fourth or last day and the day can be selected as a day of the week, weekend day, week day, or day. This option can be used to customize operations to run on specific points in the month for compliance requirements. For example, you can specify a job to run on the last weekday of the month. This will result in a backup on the last business day. Note that weekday do not account for time periods ending on a holiday and business is closed. You can use custom calendars to overcome this.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Start	Defaults to today's date. You can select a specific future date for the schedule to begin. The date can be selected through a drop-down calendar box. In the date box, use the inner arrows to switch between months and the outer arrows to switch between years.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Never End	Makes this schedule permanent.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End By	Terminates the schedule after a specific date and time.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End After	determines how many times the job is run before the schedule is terminated.
Repeat Every nn Months	Determines how many months to skip before repeating the job. This is a very powerful option for monthly schedules. For example, you can set a schedule to run on the last weekday of the month, specify the start date of the schedule to be the last day of the quarter, and have the job repeat every three months. This configuration results in a quarter end backup job.
Repeat Every nn Hours and xx Minutes	Determines how frequently the job is run. This is useful for frequent backup requirements such as transaction logs or point in time incremental backups. For example, you can schedule a daily transaction log backup to begin at 7:00 AM and repeat every 1 hour until 8:00 PM.
Exceptions Button	Excludes a particular day. The options are: first, second, third, fourth, or last day and the day can be selected as a day of the week, weekend day, week day, or day. A drop-down calendar view displays the days of the month where any day can be checked to be excluded. This offers tremendous flexibility in the scheduler. For example, you can schedule a weekly full backup to run every Friday except for the last Friday of the month. The last Friday full that runs in the month can then have special attributes associated with it such as isolating the job on specific media or automatically exporting the tape after the job completes.
Options - Time Zone	Defaults to the time zone used of the CommServe^® server. If you have clients in other time zones use this option to set the correct time zone for the client.

Schedule Type:	Yearly A yearly backup is defined to run a once a year backup. This is also useful for the compliance type of operations.
Start Time	Determines the time the job begins.
On Day	Allows you to specify a particular day of a particular month.
On The	Specifies a particular day of the year you want the job to run. The options are: which month, the first, second, third, fourth or last day and the day can be selected as a day of the week, weekend day, week day, or day.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Start	Defaults to today's date. You can select a specific future date for the schedule to begin. The date can be selected through a drop-down calendar box. In the date box use the inner arrows to switch between months and the outer arrows to switch between years.
Options - Range of Recurrence: Never End	Makes this schedule permanent.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End By	Terminates the schedule after a specific date and time.
Options - Range of Recurrence: End After	Determines how many times the job runs before the schedule is terminated.
Repeat Every nn Hours and xx Minutes	Determines how frequently the job runs. This is useful for frequent backup requirements such as transaction logs or point in time incremental backups. For example, you can schedule a daily transaction log backup to begin at 7:00 AM and repeat every 1 hour until 8:00 PM.
Options - Time Zone	Defaults to the time zone of the CommServe^® server. If you have clients in other time zones use this option to set the correct time zone for the client.

Automatic Schedule

Commvault^® software provides the ability to control the execution of jobs using an automatic schedule. The automatic schedule uses criteria which, when met, triggers the execution of the task automatically. Automatic schedules are used for three specific examples:

Laptop backups
Database backups
Auxiliary Copy

Tip: How to Ensure the Data is Sent Off-site
Most jobs run once during the day while normal schedules can be used for auxiliary copies. The automatic copy allows you to set a check interval for source data to be copied. This is an advantage when jobs are run multiple times per day, or if you are unsure when the source data will become available for copy.

Example: A critical database is running transaction log backups every four hours. You want to run an auxiliary copy of the source transaction logs to a secondary location, in this case a disk library off-site.

Solution: Schedule the transaction logs to back up every four hours. Then set the automatic auxiliary copy option to check for source data in much shorter intervals. If source data is present, the auxiliary copy runs creating an additional copy of the data.

Automatic Laptop Backup

The protection of mobile users' laptops is controlled through an automatic schedule that uses criteria, such as available bandwidth, AC power, or if the laptop is idle. This ensures that backups are executed when the computer is under ideal condition.

When setting up the criteria for laptop backups, two values must be set for intervals between jobs, which are as follows:

Detect file or log activity every – This is the minimal time between two consecutive backup jobs. The default value is 15 minutes. If the laptop has been protected more than 15 minutes ago, and if it meets all requirements, such as available bandwidth, AC power, etc., it is then protected.
Run the backup every – This is the maximum acceptable time between backup jobs. The default value is 4 hours. This means that if a laptop has been protected more than 4 hours ago, even if it does not meet the requirements, such as available bandwidth, AC power, etc., the system attempts to back it up. This prevents a laptop to function for a long period without being protected. An example is when the laptop's battery is used frequently or the bandwidth is limited.

Automatic database log backups

The automatic backup schedule for databases allows to set a space usage threshold for the volume where the database log files reside. If the space usage is reached, a backup is triggered, which implies truncating the logs at the end of the backup. It will therefore free up space on the volume. This is a useful tool to prevent database log volumes to fill up if backups are not scheduled to run frequently enough.

When setting up the criteria for database backups, two values must be set for interval between backup jobs, which are as follows:

Detect file or log activity every – This is the minimal time between two consecutive backup jobs. The default value is 15 minutes. If the database has been protected more than 15 minutes ago, and its log volume space usage reaches the defined usage threshold, it gets protected.
Run the backup every – This is the maximum acceptable time between backup jobs. The default value is 4 hours. This means that if a database has been protected more than 4 hours ago, even if log volume space usage has not reached the defined threshold, the system protects it.

Commvault software supports the following applications for database backups:

Microsoft^® SQL server
Oracle
Oracle RAC
SAP for Oracle
Notes database traditional log backups
MongoDB

For the most current list of applications, refer to the Commvault^® Online Documentation.

Automatic Auxiliary Copy Schedule

Expand Policies | Schedule Policies | Right-click System Created Autocopy schedule | Click Edit

An automatic schedule is used to run an auxiliary copy. You can create the automatic schedule if you want to perform the auxiliary copy at a specific frequency to ensure that an additional copy of data is automatically created. If you define a frequency of 30 minutes, this means that every 30 minutes the system checks if there are completed jobs in a storage policy primary copy that have not yet been copied to a secondary copy. If this is the case, the auxiliary copy job starts copying these jobs.

An automatic schedule has a significant advantage over a traditional auxiliary copy schedule that runs after the backups. Since it executes every 30 minutes, if jobs have completed, they are copied even if other backup jobs are still running. This provides the shortest auxiliary copy window possible.

When Commvault^® software is installed, a schedule policy named System Created Autocopy schedule is implemented by default. When a storage policy secondary copy is created, it automatically becomes associated with that schedule policy that executes auxiliary copies every 30 minutes.

Scripting

When jobs are configured in the CommCell^® console they can be saved as scripts. Saving a job as a script lets the user execute jobs on demand. For example, if the DBA dumps database files each night, there is a risk that the dump process will finish at different times and a scheduled backup may run before the dump operations are complete. If the backup of the dump location is saved as a script, the DBA can call the script once the dump operations complete ensuring the data is properly protected.

Scripts can also be used by third party schedule manager software, such as BMC Control-M^®, Windows^® NT Scheduler or Linux Crontab.

Save As Script Screen Options

Right-click the subclient | Click Backup | Save As Script button

The following table displays several options that are required to configure when creating the script:

Option:	Description
Client	This is the server on which the script is saved. It also is the server on which the script is executed by the DBA or the external scheduler.
File Path	Defines the location where the script is saved. The path must also include the file name. For Windows^® systems, a batch file with a .bat extension must be used. For Linux and UNIX-based systems, a shell script with a .sh extension must be used.
Mode – Asynchronous or Synchronous	Defines how the script is executed: Asynchronous mode – is used to launch a backup script, the job gets initiated, and as soon as it starts, the script continues the execution and completion, even if the backup job is not completed. Synchronous mode – is selected, the backup gets initiated, and the script pauses and waits for the backup job to complete before resuming the execution and completion of the script. The mode is important in some scenarios, such as if the script is part of a workflow, where the backup must complete before progressing furthermore with the workflow.
User Account	When a script is executed, the initial phase of the script is to authenticate against the CommServe^® server to validate the user. User can be a domain or CommCell console user and must have required privileges to execute a script. The user options are: Authenticate at run time – Click to prompt for credentials when the script is run. Use the currently logged in user account – Click to use the credentials of the user logged on to the CommCell console. Password – The password for the user whose credentials will be used to run the script. Confirm Password – Retype the password for confirmation. Use a different user account – Click to provide the credentials of the user whose credentials will be used to run the script. User Name – The user whose credentials will be used to run the script. Password – The password for the user whose credentials will be used to run the script. Confirm Password – Retype the password for confirmation. Use local admin account – Click to allow the local administrator of a client computer (or a user with administrative rights) to log on to the CommServe^® server without the need to provide a user name and password. This option verifies that the user currently logged on to the client is a local administrator. Once authenticated, the user is automatically logged on to the CommServe server as the owner of the client. All the operations that the user can perform will be limited to that client. To enable this option, set the nQSDK_ALLOW_LOCAL_ADMIN additional setting. For more information, refer to the Commvault^® Online Documentation. Use Single Sign On - Click to use single sign-on (SSO) to log on using the user account credentials from the Active Directory service provider. This option is available on Windows client computers.

To create a script, simply choose all the options as if you were to execute the job, but instead of running it immediately, click the Save As Script button.

Script Files

When a Save As Script operation is conducted, two files are created:

The first file is the script itself, using the file name that was provided in the Save As Script window.
The second file is an XML formatted file. It contains all the backup options selected when the script was created. It is used as an input by the script.

Both files can be copied and modified to create additional tasks. For instance, the XML file can be copied and modified to replace the Incremental backup type with Full; creating the full backup input file without having to go through all the Save As Script screens again.

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