Question About Scheduling and Locking

[ekisner]

Quick question, figure the forums would be faster than a support ticket.

If I have two jobs (weekly+incremental and monthly) using different sets of tapes in the same library (with a single drive in it), will a job with "As new backup files appear" keep the tape drive locked, or will the monthly job correctly start at it's intended time?

[veremin]

I'm confused how you are going create weekly or monthly job with "as new backup files appear". Are you going to use "backup window" and prohibit job execution during all days, but weekend?

[ekisner]

If Veeam had a proper GFS rotation I wouldn't need two jobs (or at least, any funky scheduling), but for right now the weekly job starts at 11pm (most backup jobs have finished by then) with the monthly job set to start 1 minute earlier at 10:59, just on a monthly schedule instead of a weekly schedule. On the day where the monthly job is to run, I usually just accept that it's going to write to the weekly tapes and the monthly tapes if the weekly job doesn't time out.

What I want to do is better optimize my tape drive utilization, writing backup files as they appear rather than waiting for 5-6 hours for the jobs to be "probably done". My tape drive is running almost 80% of the week just doing backups, and it makes restoring from tape problematic.

[ekisner]

Sorry I just had some coffee. I see your confusion.

The weekly job would be on "as new backup files appear", the monthly job would remain scheduled.

[veremin]

Got it. Weekly job will the drive only during archiving operation, and will release it afterwards. If the monthly starts when the weekly one is still running, the monthly job will be sitting and waiting for the drive's availability. Thanks.

[ekisner]

Thank you! That sounds perfect, it should improve my backup windows.

On a side note, is GFS a planned feature for the next release?

[veremin]

is GFS a planned feature for the next release?

It's, indeed. But, as mentioned at the bottom of the page, all feature and release plans are subject to change without notice.

[ekisner]

Oh definitely, I don't treat anything as written in stone. But it's very VERY comforting to know that it's on the radar at the very least. Will greatly simplify things.

Thank you again

[veremin]

You're welcome. Feel free to ask for additional help, if required. Thanks.