Feature Request: Backup plan retry times too low

[JanJirousek]

Hi, we need to have possibility to set more time between each failed job - in service provider console job. See screenshot. There is only 999 minutes max. If PC is offline for weekend then best is to have not hours, but days to skip weekend or holiday...

[Gostev]

Actually this schedule is for Server backup jobs and servers are not supposed to be offline for extended time. We offer Workstation backup jobs for desktop/laptop backup, these will perform backups that were missed due to the PC being offline without you having to worry about retry timeout value.

[JanJirousek]

But we are using server for workstation, as implementation team suggested and this way is Acronis solution, from which we are migrating to the Veeam. In workstation mode, there are a lot of limitations, which we cannot accept.

Best regards Jan

[Gostev]

Well, that was a very bad suggestion indeed, the "implementation team" just did not think this one through carefully. While using huge retry timeouts may indeed help to work around extended PC offline periods, such approach will also break the actual job retry functionality in normal circumstances.

The main purpose of the retry functionality is to address situations like network connectivity glitches, server reboots, VSS snapshot issues etc. in other words things that take a few minutes to resolve themselves. Therefore if you set the retry timeout to some huge value beyond standard 5-15 mins, your retries will simply never happen and you will be left with no backups during weekdays, when they are most important. Your jobs will be just waiting for some days before performing a retry. This is exactly why we do not and never will allow users to set a very high retry timeout values.

[JanJirousek]

But we need to control backup from SPC server, and be managed from there. Not to be managed from workstation. Workstation mode has big limitations. Because, our workstation isn't like laptops in your way, but production computers where something run but usually without user input at all. So Veeam mean workstation like laptops with user, but we need workstation/server without user at all and to be fully controled from server SPC side.

[Gostev]

Note that I'm just explaining why increasing the retry timeout is extremely damaging to normal product operations, with this being the reason why we do not allow setting arbitrary high job retry timeouts for the Server mode in the user interface.

I'm not necessarily arguing with your need, even if I don't fully understand it as you never listed the perceived limitations of the Workstation mode. Perhaps you should create a separate topic in the appropriate Veeam Agent subforum to discuss improvements you want to see for the Workstation mode.

Although:
"production computers where something run but usually without user input at all"
This means they are effectively servers, therefore they should not be shut down for extended time in the first place.

[JanJirousek]

OK, thank you very much for support. We needed to switch from Acronis and this server mode was only one possible way....