Tape Jobs Schedule enhancements

[tfloor]

Is there a schedule exclusion coming for tape backups?

Normally when for example it's christmas i disable that days for backup to tape, otherwise it's sitting there and waiting for a tape.
I don't see it at the moment.

[Peter_Riederer]

Yes we would really appreciate this feature too !
Just a few minutes ago i had a discussion with one of my colleagues, that there is currently no possibilty to exclude days -> daily, weekly, monthly backup on holidays e.g.

[marksmithuk]

Another person here who thinks that would be a useful feature

[Peter_Riederer]

i think we all want to get rid of our Backup Exec Installations, and just use Veeam as the one and only tool

[marksmithuk]

all services all disabled.... just waiting to click the uninstall button here!!! Cannot wait!

[veremin]

For now you can, probably, write a simple PS script responsible for enabling/disabling given tape job(s) and schedule it via Windows Scheduler to run during the said period (XMAS holidays). In other words, tape job will be disabled at the begging of the holidays and enabled again once the holidays are finished:

Disable a tape job:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
$Job = Get-VBRTapeJob -name "Name of tape job" 
$Job.DisableScheduler() 

Enable a tape job:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
$Job = Get-VBRTapeJob -name "Name of tape job" 
$Job.EnableScheduler() 

Disable all tape jobs:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
foreach ($Job in Get-VBRTapeJob)
{
$Job.DisableScheduler()
} 

Enable all tape jobs:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
foreach ($Job in Get-VBRTapeJob)
{
$Job.DisableScheduler()
} 

Thanks.

[Gostev]

Would not it be easier to just shutdown Veeam server when leaving for the holidays

[Dima P.]

Hello to all,

Thank you for the great feedback - we will look in to the possibility of improving the scheduling for backup to tape jobs. Meanwhile, you could use the groundbreaking scripts from the Veeam PowerShell Guru

[marksmithuk]

Good idea v.Eremin, and nice try Gostev but we would need the main backups / replication to run for the off person that enjoys working on Christmas day

[tfloor]

Would not it be easier to just shutdown Veeam server when leaving for the holidays

Backups to disks are no problem, that don't need the manual action. That's why i love to disk, and little bit hate the tape

[HTHGMBH]

It would be nice to configure some exclusions Dates for the Tape backup Job. Couse on Holiday days when nobody insert a new tape the backup Jobs runs into an error. So please give the Option for Tape Jobs to configure exclusion Dates, maybe with the Option to Import local Holiday days. This would be very helpful.

[Shestakov]

Hello!

In some countries Holidays depend on the exact day of the year, in others it`s the 1/2/3rd Mon/Tue/etc. of a month. In some countries a Holiday can be moved, let`s say from Tue to Mon to make a long weekend. + some companies work on Holidays etc.
So I believe importing Holidays can cause a lot of issues and complaints. However, idea of adding exclusions of exact days makes sense. Let`s see of someone else needs the option as well.

Thank you for the feedback!

[veremin]

You still prohibit tape job execution on certain days via PS scripting. Though, the script provided above would not work in version 8 due to some changes introduced there.

Current version should look like this:

Disable a tape job:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
$Job = Get-VBRTapeJob -name "Name of tape job"
Disable-VBRJob -Job $Job

Enable a tape job:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
$Job = Get-VBRTapeJob -name "Name of tape job"
Enable-VBRJob -Job $Job

Disable all tape jobs:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
foreach ($Job in Get-VBRTapeJob)
{
Disable-VBRJob -Job $Job
} 

Enable all tape jobs:

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
foreach ($Job in Get-VBRTapeJob)
{
Enable-VBRJob -Job $Job
} 

Thanks.

[JNelsonLogix]

Hey Support,

I just wanted to make a suggestion in regards to tape backups. When holidays occur, users are not in the office. There should be an option to exclude certain days or something along those grounds. For example one of our clients infrastructure setup: A Daily Backup Job of 3 virtual machines that is scheduled to run the job automatically on "Weekdays" at 6:00 PM. Then they have a Tape Backup Job that is scheduled to run as soon as the Daily Backup Job completes. When Monday comes around and the Daily Backup completes, the wrong tape is going to be in the drive and cause problems. This is something that should be addressed or updated in a patch. Any tips or comments are appreciated.

Jonathan

[Dima P.]

Hello Jonathan,

Thanks - good request. Have you considered using PowerShell to disable the tape jobs during holidays?

[veremin]

Hi, Jonathan,

Kindly, check the script provided above and see whether it meets your expectations.

Thanks.

[DBecker]

I have tried the PowerShell scripts listed above. The Disable All worked... once. The Enable All will not work. This was running it manually. When I tried to schedule it, it kicked off at the right time but did nothing, and when I checked the Job in Task Scheduler, its status was "Running." And it stayed that way until I manually stopped it.

I am running Veeam B&R 9.0 and Windows Server 2012R2.

[rreed]

Afternoon, all. We use a bunch of File to Tape jobs to archive our backup files to tape. I'd like to run the jobs in a particular order, so I simply set the first job at say 9:00 (Incremental Backup, Run incremental backup automatically at this time), the second one at 9:01, third 9:02, etc. thinking they would fire in that order, with each job waiting for the last one to finish, keeping the order of Next Run.

They don't, they seem to fire in I'm not sure what order, but certainly isn't by Next Run/schedule as indicated above. I would say randomly, though it might not exactly be random since we only fire tape backups once a month and I haven't noted if there's a pattern in their execution order. I just know it certainly isn't in order I would like. v9u1, if that helps.

[PTide]

Hi,

Thinking they would fire in that order, with each job waiting for the last one to finish, keeping the order of Next Run.

The easiest way to achieve what you are after is to use a post-job script for each File To tape job that will trigger the next job to start after the previous one has finished.

Thanks

[rreed]

Very good, I suppose. Any chance the scheduling will get fixed in an update or future version? Or what would be great is to add "After this job" like I think Backup and some other job types have. That would be awesome most of all please.

[PTide]

Any chance the scheduling will get fixed in an update or future version?

Not in v9.5 for sure, maybe later.

Thanks

[Didi7]

Quote Dima P:
» Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:16 pm
Hello to all,

Thank you for the great feedback - we will look in to the possibility of improving the scheduling for backup to tape jobs. Meanwhile, you could use the groundbreaking scripts from the Veeam PowerShell Guru

**************************************************************************************************************************************

More than 3 years later, what actually has changed regarding scheduling mechanisms for tape jobs? Several times users complain the lack of feature to schedule 'File to Tape jobs' with the scheduler option 'After this job' including me!

Will this finally be possible in VBR v9.5 or do we have to wait another year, if at all?

Regards,
Didi7

[Shestakov]

Hello Didi7,
There will not be a UI feature to disable tape jobs for Christmas or any other weekend however tape scheduling will be improved in v9.5
You will have an option to delay source jobs start if tape jobs are still processing backup files, rather than stopping the tape jobs.

[Didi7]

I will have a closer look, as soon as 9.5 is available.

[veremin]

Will this finally be possible in VBR v9.5 or do we have to wait another year, if at all?

Nope, "after this job" files to tape schedule option won't be included in 9.5. Thanks.

[Didi7]

Is this so difficult to include? Maybe in the first update? I have the impression, that a lot of users asked for this option browsing the forum or is this not on the top list? You know, putting additional stuff on tape beside the actual *.vbk and *.vib stuff, is necessary as well and to guess, when B2D-jobs are finished, is not a nice option.

Regards,
Didi7

[veremin]

Is this so difficult to include?

It's not always about underlying difficulty, but rather about priority given to more demanded functionality. Also, this schedule gap can be easily bypassed via simple PS script.

Maybe in the first update?

First update is more about fixing crucial issues, rather than adding new features. So, I wouldn't expect it implemented in Update 1.

Thanks.

[Didi7]

[Blue407]

I too would like to see the ability to eclude certain days from a backup job, only for tape in my case.

Its only a simple calendar thats required with the option to exlcude certain dates you select, it really shouldn't be a major job to add it.

Sorry, but PS scripts and scheduling them is not a valid solution, we need a proper GUI option. I can see requests dating back over 6 years for this feature.

[Shestakov]

Hello, Paul!
Among main reasons why the feature is not implemented yet, that we had not much of requests in the mentioned years and there is a powershell-based workaround.
Thank you for the request, more we have, earlier the feature is to be released.