Tape job scheduing issue in VBR9.5

[jdewitte]

Hi,

We're currently implementing Veeam B&R. Now we've an issue with tape job scheduling.

We've setup a VM backup job:
- Schedule: Runs Mon-Fri 19:00
- Job finishes in +/- 1h

We've setup a tape job:
- Backup Files: The job described above
- Scheduling: As new backup files appear
- Schedule window: Mon-Fri 19:00-00:00

When the job runs it perfectly writes the files to tape. Around 23:20 the job is finished.
After that the job starts again, because the scheduled time window is till 00:00.
But we don't want it to run again. Because the last job result then isn't the one that actually has written the files to tape.

Is it possible to narrow the schedule down to 19:00-23:00?
I'm assuming if the job still runs at 23:01 it will be stopped automatically without finishing the job.
Or will the tape job keep running until it's finished writing the files to tape?

I hope someone can give us some more info about how the tape job reacts on the schedule options.

Kind regards,
Jan

[Shestakov]

Hi Jan and welcome to the community!
Do you use backup to tape job or file to tape one?
If no new files appear the job should not start at 23.20
You may change the scheduling from "As new backup files appear" to Mon-Fri 21.00
Thanks!

[jdewitte]

Hi Nikita,

Thanks for the quick reply!
We're using a backup to tape job.
The point is, if we change the schedule to 21:00, does it keep running if it takes till 23:20 to complete?
And what if the VM backup job runs till after 21:00? Will the backup to tape job still run, because it started and is waiting for new restore points from 19:00?

Kind regards,
Jan

[Shestakov]

Jan,

And what if the VM backup job runs till after 21:00? Will the backup to tape job still run, because it started and is waiting for new restore points from 19:00?

It will start but since no new backups founded, nothing is to be copied to tape during that backup-to-tape job run.
Another option is to change As new backup files appear to After this job and choose the source job.

When the job runs it perfectly writes the files to tape. Around 23:20 the job is finished.
After that the job starts again, because the scheduled time window is till 00:00.

This part does disturb me. Do you have any other files appear at 23:20? What is being copied there?

[jdewitte]

Nikita,

Another option is to change As new backup files appear to After this job and choose the source job.

Using 'After this job' is no option, because the VM backup job does a synthetic full on saturday and we're using a separate GFS tape job to archive the full backups.

This part does disturb me. Do you have any other files appear at 23:20? What is being copied there?

Answer to that is no. The VM backup job is the only job that was running before. Once it was finished it didn't run again.

I described the issue a bit further in Word and generated a PDF, so I could easily show you some printscreens.
Here's an OneDrive share link to it:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AvVD0zkqogTVg7URkS8qQw53Vrua6A
If you wish I can send it to email.

Can you take a look at it and give some advice?

Kind regards,
Jan

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Jan,

On the schedule, the option "If some linked backup jobs are still running, wait for up to … hours". What is your setting here? What will happen (if I am not mistaken) is when your linked backup goes "overtime" it will still do the job since it was started between the allowed hours and then was waiting the ... hours (as a maximum).

You can also combine that with starting on specific days (Mo - Fri) at 19.00 or so, so it will be idle until the linked job is finished

[jdewitte]

Hi Mike,

"If some linked backup jobs are still running, wait for up to … hours". What is your setting here?

This option isn't set, because it's greyed out. As it seems that option can only be used when using the option 'After this job'.

Do you know if it will work to schedule the tape job at a moment the linked backup is finished for sure?
Will it still detect the new restore points to archive them to tape (because they appeared already)?

Kind regards,
Jan

[jdewitte]

Hi,

I think the solution to this scenario is to use 'Daily at this time: 19:00' with the option 'If some linked backups are still running, wait up to: 8h'.
With this setup the tape job cannot run out of schedule, as long the linked job finishes within 8h. So now if the tape job runs and the linked job takes 1h to complete, the tape job will archive the files after that. If the linked job takes 6h to complete it also will archive the files to tape.

For this scenario it seems using 'As new backup files appear' isn't the right one to choose.

Kind regards,
Jan

[Shestakov]

Jan,

Do you know if it will work to schedule the tape job at a moment the linked backup is finished for sure?
Will it still detect the new restore points to archive them to tape (because they appeared already)?

Yes it will.
But as was mentioned above, if the tape job starts when not all source backup jobs are finished, it will copy to tape not all the files.

That also answers your question from the provided document:

What if the VM backup job takes longer than 1h and runs till 22:00? Will the backup to tape job keep waiting for new restore points after 20:00?

[jdewitte]

Nikita,

Thanks for the reply.

Just to summarize what we've discussed so far:

When using a backup to tape job with the scheduling option 'As new backup files appear'
1) It will run and archive restore points to tape when the source job is already finished (no need for scheduling at the same time)
2) When the source job finishes out of the schedule of the backup to tape job it will finish without archiving anything to tape
3) When the backup to tape job started archiving files to tape and that process goes out of the schedule it still finishes the process (no automatic cancel)
4) When the backup to tape job has a schedule from 08:00 till 09:00 and the job takes till anytime before 09:00 to finish, that will trigger the job to start again waiting for new restore points. The job will remain in idle state until the scheduled time window is ended. Then the second started job will stop/finish without archiving anything. The job results will show 2 jobs, 1 started at the given time window that archived the files to tape, and 1 started directly after the first job and finished without archiving anything.

For now the behavior of the 'As new backup files appear' option becomes a lot more clear. Maybe this information can be added to the technical documentation.
Regarding point 4, can you confirm this as expected behavior?

Kind regards,
Jan

[Dima P.]

Hi Jan,
Thanks for the feedback!

1) It will run and archive restore points to tape when the source job is already finished (no need for scheduling at the same time)

Yes

2) When the source job finishes out of the schedule of the backup to tape job it will finish without archiving anything to tape

Yes

3) When the backup to tape job started archiving files to tape and that process goes out of the schedule it still finishes the process (no automatic cancel)

Tape job will continue to archive data to tape. It is not canceled in such case, otherwise the data written to tape is inconsistent.

4)When the backup to tape job has a schedule from 08:00 till 09:00 and the job takes till anytime before 09:00 to finish, that will trigger the job to start again waiting for new restore points.

Yes. However, that’s going to be two separate tape job runs.