Scheduling

[Frank N Berry]

Hi. We're a longtime Retrospect user, but first time Retrospect 8 user. We've waited for 8 to 'stabilize' before switching to it and so far it's worked well. However, we're trying to figure out the scheduling of Backup Scripts. One thing that's drastically different is the scheduling between 6 & 8. With 6, you could set a preference of when execution was allowed. So even if a backup script did not complete, it would stop at a specific time always.

 

For us, the specific time of allowed operation is Monday - Friday 8pm to 7am and all day Saturday and Sunday. To configure this functionality in Retrospect 8, it appears that you have to fiddle with the Stop field depending on the day (and the newly released manual doesn't help our particular setup).

 

Specifically, we have 18 backup scripts, 8 that repeat every 10 weeks and then 10 that repeat every 50 weeks. All scripts Recycle on Fridays and run incremental until Thursday. Here's a sample (the 8 are WA through WH, the 10 are MA through MJ):

 

3/19/10 WA

3/26/10 WB

4/2/10 WC

4/9/10 WD

4/16/10 MA

4/23/10 WE

4/30/10 WF

5/7/10 WG

5/14/10 WH

5/21/10 MB

5/28/10 WA

6/4/10 WB

6/11/10 WC

6/18/10 WD

6/25/10 MC

7/2/10 WE

7/9/10 WF

7/16/10 WG

7/23/10 WH

7/30/10 MD

8/6/10 WA

etc

 

Each script has a corresponding media set and the schedule we'd like to have is for each script to start on the relevant Friday at 8pm and run until Monday morning at 7am (starting at 8pm on Saturday and Sunday in case it finishes before Monday morning and there's new data). Then from Monday through Thursday, start at 8pm and stop at 7am. The following Friday starts the next script and so on. The goal of course is to not run the backup during business hours (8am to 7pm M-F), but to definitely 'go wild' outside those hours. The backup server is a Mac Pro4,1 running OS X.6.2 Server with a host of services (AFP, SMB, DNS, mail, web, ical, address book, and FTP) along with Retrospect 8.1.626 (engine and console). Backup device is a Quantum SuperLoader3 with a HH LTO-3 drive attached via an Atto UL5D.

 

To accomplish the above, we created the first script (WA) with the following 3 Schedules:

 

1) Start: 8pm, Repeat: Weekly, Every: 10 weeks, On: Fri, Stop: when done. (Media action: Recycle)

 

2) Start: 8pm, Repeat: Weekly, Every: 10 weeks, On: Sat, Stop: when done.

 

3) Start: 8pm, Repeat: Weekly, Every: 10 weeks, On: SunMonTuesWedThurs, Stop: at 7am.

 

As soon as (or after restarting the Console, clicking Sources, or doing anything else and then coming back) we move on to creating the next script (WB) to do the same schedule (with relevant start dates of course), the above script (WA) changes to:

 

1) Start: 8pm, Repeat: Weekly, Every: 10 weeks, On: Fri, Stop: at 12am. (Media action: Recycle)

 

2) Start: 8pm, Repeat: Weekly, Every: 10 weeks, On: Sat, Stop: at 12am.

 

3) Start: 8pm, Repeat: Weekly, Every: 10 weeks, On: SunMonTuesWedThurs, Stop: at 7am.

 

This would lead me to believe that the Friday script would start at 8pm Friday then run until Midnight (Saturday morning) and stop. Which means the 2nd schedule won't start until 8pm that Saturday? Same goes for Sunday.

 

Since we just started using Retrospect this last Monday (no weekend yet), we haven't witnessed the above behavior, but thought it was odd that a Stop time defined as "when done" changes to an arbitrary "at fixed time" (of 12am). Or does that mean the same thing to Retrospect 8?

 

Is this a bug? Or is there a better way for us to schedule it per our needs above? Any help greatly appreciated!

 

UPDATE: It appears that the "at fixed time" or "when done" applies to all 3 schedules depending on what you set last. So if I create the schedules in the order 1 to 3 above, #3 (with "at fixed time") changes the first 2 schedules to "at fixed time" as well and since you didn't enter a fixed time, defaults to 12am. So we tried created the 3rd schedule first and the first schedule last, but that changes all 3 schedules to "when done" which means that it will run into business hours.

 

So our dilemma remains with this Stop field: run into business hours ("when done") or lose backup time outside business hours ("at fixed time: 12am"). We suppose that we could explicitly define each and every day for each script (start 8pm and stop 11:59pm Fri, then start 12am Sat then stop 11:59pm, etc.), but we're hoping to avoid that. Please tell us there's an easier way....Thanks!

Edited March 25, 2010 by Guest

[bcarillon]

What you are describing is a bug. I was trying to accomplish a very similar strategy and kept running into the 12:00 a.m. issue. I called tech support and they informed me that the scheduler had some bugs and this was one of them. The next release is supposed to fix the scheduler. I asked when that would be and they told me not until May.

 

So for now I was told that there is no workaround which is unfortunate because I can't use the product like i should. Backups during business hours are something I will not do.

[Maser]

Backups during business hours are something I will not do.

 

 

 

FWIW -- I do this all the time (and I've done so for years).

 

For my *servers* -- I do those at night.

 

For my client machines -- it doesn't matter much -- if the reason you are doing this at night is because you think it will impact the client's performance during backup -- it really doesn't.

 

 

 

[Frank N Berry]

Ok, thanks guys. Thought it might be a bug but wanted to make sure it wasn't our installation.

 

Running it during business hours is not an option (at least for now). We'd hate to be called in because the backup software (secondary to business) is causing problems with file sharing, email, etc. (which are primary concerns). Not to say that Retrospect could be to blame, but rather having that extra 'cook in the kitchen' is something I'd rather not entertain, especially if the software will be fixed eventually.

 

I think we'll have to figure out some workaround (start at 12:01am) until they fix it.