Feature Request - Start time on Jobs

[mdornfeld]

[merged]

I think I've mentioned this before, but one of the difficulties we have is that there's no way to schedule a job to run multiple times per a day off of the hour. Schedule a dozen jobs like this, and you can see where there becomes an issue.

For instance, with the job scheduler and a file server, I can only tell the job to kick off at 2am,6am,10am,2pm, 6pm, 10pm. I can't tell it to kick off at 2:30am,6:30am,10:30am,2:30pm, 6:30pm, 10:30pm.

We find that we get a number of jobs that try to kick off simultaniously on the hour and most jobs only take 15-20 minutes, and it would even out disk I/O and CPU, etc a lot more if I could stagger the jobs throughout the hour.

If anything, just allowing the blue/white time scheduler to zoom into 15 minute increments would be a huge help.

[gerg]

[merged]

Hi,

I'm very new to Veeam and currently in testing mode for a DR project. I suspect this one has already been answered but unfortunately my search skills have drawn a blank.

I have some replication jobs that are set to run every 4 hours. If I go into one of the jobs and edit it 3 hours after the job last ran it seems to change the schedule so that the next replication cycle will be another 4 hours. That would mean that it would be 7 hours between replication jobs. Is there a way around that please? I'm suspecting that powershell may be required but it feels a bit early in the testing process for that!

I can see that this would become a real problem if I'd carefully scheduled all my jobs and then wanted to edit one, especially if I can only replicate certain servers due to SQL maintenance plans etc.

The other issue I noticed on this was that in all my replication jobs I set a denied time period. I set the window the same for all the jobs. Now all the jobs start as soon as the time window opens. I assume I can fix this by adjusting the time window?

Maybe it's just me but I feel that the scheduler is a little lacking in functionality. It would be nice to be able to configure replication jobs to run from this date and replicate every 4 hours, between these hours.

Thanks in advance
Greg

[gerg]

Hi,

As I said in my last post I'm very new to Veeam and currently in testing mode for a DR project. The testing has been going really well and we'll be looking to move over from vRanger in the near future.

I've had some more time to think about the scheduler and am of the opinion that it is lacking in functionality, the 2 main issues being....

1. If I have a replication job that is configured to run every 4 hours and I edit the job 2 hours after it's last start time it won't run until another 4 hours has passed. The only way around this is to edit the job and select 'run this job when I click finish' and click finish when the job would of next run. Hopefully that makes sense! Basically the next replication still occurs when it was scheduled to and the business is happy but the admin has had to faff about a bit.
My solution for this would be to have an additional box on the 'summary' page that has an option to 'don't adjust future replication time', which in effect stops the scheduler from adding 4 hours and leaves it as it is. That way I can edit jobs to my hearts content whithout having to be concerned that I'm going to lose replication cycles.

2. I can only permit or deny replication in hourly intervals. My last backup usually finishes just after the hour and I want to start off-site replication as soon as I can after that. Using the current scheduler I have to wait until the beginning of the next hour.
Maybe this isn't the best example but lets say my SQL servers are doing transaction logs on the hour and a full backup every 6 hours and they had all been configured to run on the hour. If I wanted to replicate those servers every 15 mins there is a high chance I'd be replicating the server whilst SQL is busy doing stuff.
My solution for this would be exactly as someone else suggested and to give us a function where we can zoom in to 15 min chunks.

As far as product development goes and how / where to use resources I find myself wondering how many people would like more functionality from the scheduler but haven't taken the time to raise it in the forum. In my case I'm not scheduling my replication in the way I expected that I would based on not having the functionality in the scheduler and not wanting to go down the powershell route.

Cheers
Greg

[withanh]

1. If I have a replication job that is configured to run every 4 hours and I edit the job 2 hours after it's last start time it won't run until another 4 hours has passed. The only way around this is to edit the job and select 'run this job when I click finish' and click finish when the job would of next run. Hopefully that makes sense! Basically the next replication still occurs when it was scheduled to and the business is happy but the admin has had to faff about a bit.
My solution for this would be to have an additional box on the 'summary' page that has an option to 'don't adjust future replication time', which in effect stops the scheduler from adding 4 hours and leaves it as it is. That way I can edit jobs to my hearts content whithout having to be concerned that I'm going to lose replication cycles.

I agree, I think more functionality in the scheduler would be great. However, with that said, you can do what you want with the Windows Task Scheduler. When you edit a job, on the last page just before you hit finish, it shows you the commandline for the job. You can take this commandline and use it to create a Windows Task, set your Windows task to start whenever you want and to run every 4 hours. Then just don't use the Veeam scheduler and you've got what you're looking for.

2. I can only permit or deny replication in hourly intervals. My last backup usually finishes just after the hour and I want to start off-site replication as soon as I can after that. Using the current scheduler I have to wait until the beginning of the next hour.
Maybe this isn't the best example but lets say my SQL servers are doing transaction logs on the hour and a full backup every 6 hours and they had all been configured to run on the hour. If I wanted to replicate those servers every 15 mins there is a high chance I'd be replicating the server whilst SQL is busy doing stuff.

You can do something similar with this, get the command line for the job and in your backup job properties go to Storage, hit the Advanced Settings button then the Advanced tab. At the bottom is a Post job activity. You can paste the commandline for the replication job here so as soon as the backup job is complete, it will kick off the replication job for you.

[gerg]

Hi Withanh,

Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely have a look into this as I suspect I can drastically reduce the backup Window by having each backup job kick off the next one and then the last backup job kicking off the tier 1 server replication job:-)

Cheers
Greg

[jeremyh8]

I would like to also request the ability to set the initial start time for a job that runs Xhours or minutes. If i setup 5 replication jobs that run every X hours i may want to stagger them. The only way to do this currently is to wait an hour or however long i want between them to create the next scheule or to manually kick off the replication at teh time i want it to start adding X hours to. this make sense? I jsut want a "start initial run" time

[alemar]

[merged]

Hi,

I would like to change the "next start time" of a scheduled job but it seems impossible to do, at least with the GUI (I am using 6.1 Patch1). Every time I edit a Job (and if I am on the scheduling tab) the next start time is calculated by the time of my editing (when I press OK). This is not what I want, or at least I need a way to change the next start time at a time I decide.

I tried to use Powershell and or update directly to the DB but after the update the GUI shows always the original time.

does anybody have any tips to do the trick?

Thanks in advance

alessandro

[davidb1234]

Requesting this feature also. I couldn't believe it wasn't there to begin with and I am forced to set the schedule outside of the GUI.

[ptmartin]

Amit, yes - this has been very common request so far, and monthly backups will be available in v5. Thanks!

Hi Anton,
We are up to v.6.1 of B&R and still no monthly or annual backup options. Is it possible this might be in version 6.5 or soon after?

Thanks,
Paul

[foggy]

We are up to v.6.1 of B&R and still no monthly or annual backup options. Is it possible this might be in version 6.5 or soon after?

Paul, monthly and annual backup options are available since Veeam B&R v5. Please find it at the Schedule step of the job wizard. Thanks!

[alemar]

Hi to everybody,

I have a workaround for changing "next start time" for a scheduled backup job.
I post an example that worked for me and for my particular scheduling:

I have a job which runs every 8 hours, including a backup window (where the jobs are not allowed to run). in order to change the "Next Start Time" for THIS case we can use PowerShell and we need to understand some fields of the ScheduledOptions for a JOB. Follows an example:

in Veeam power shell get the job that you want to modify, get the scheduledJobOptions Object and change the "LatestRun" Node:

PS C:\Users\alemar>

Code: Select all

$j=Get-VBRJob -Name "SRI-BECSRI-FS01 New"

PS C:\Users\alemar>

Code: Select all

 $j

... to see the job

Job Name Type State Last Result Description
-------- ---- ----- ----------- -----------
SRI-BECSRI-FS01 New VMware Backup Stopped Success Created by...

GET the ScheduledOptions Object

PS C:\Users\alemar>

Code: Select all

 $so=Get-VBRJobScheduleOptions -Job $j

Let's see what it is inside...
PS C:\Users\alemar>

Code: Select all

$so

StartDateTime : 31/08/2012 10:31:54
EndDateTimeSpecified : False
EndDateTime : 02/09/2012 10:32:14
RepeatSpecified : False
RepeatNumber : 1
RepeatTimeUnit : hour(s)
RepeatTimeUnitMs : 3600000
RetryTimes : 3
RetryTimeout : 10
RetrySpecified : True
WaitForBackupCompletion : True
BackupCompetitionWaitingPeriodMin : 180
OptionsDaily : Enabled: False, DayNumberInMonth: Everyday,
Days: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
OptionsMonthly : Enabled: False, Time: 30/08/2012 22:00:00,
Day Number In Month: Fourth, Day Of Week: S
aturday, Months: January, February, March,
April, May, June, July, August, September,
October, November, December
OptionsPeriodically : Enabled: True, Period: 8 hour(s), ScheduleS
tring: <scheduler><Sunday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0</Sunday><Mon
day>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0
,0,0,0,0</Monday><Tuesday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</Tuesday><We
dnesday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
,0,0,0,0,0,0</Wednesday><Thursday>0,0,0,0,0
,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</Thu
rsday><Friday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1
,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</Friday><Saturday>0,0,0,
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</
Saturday></scheduler>
OptionsContinuous : Enabled: False
OptionsBackupWindow : Veeam.Backup.Model.CBackupWindowOptions
NextRun : 08/31/2012 18:31:54
LatestRun : 31/08/2012 10:31:54

For my case I am interested in the very last Node, LatestRun and to change its value accordingly with backup window and period (well frequency)
Watch out for date format...
The logic behind (for what I understood) is to calculate the Next Run, 8 hours (my frequency) after the latest Run, that's why I need to only change the value of the LatestRun Node...

PS C:\Users\alemar>

Code: Select all

$so.LatestRun ="2012/08/31 10:00:01"

Let's see if the new value are update correctly
PS C:\Users\alemar>

Code: Select all

$so

StartDateTime : 31/08/2012 10:31:54
EndDateTimeSpecified : False
EndDateTime : 02/09/2012 10:32:14
RepeatSpecified : False
RepeatNumber : 1
RepeatTimeUnit : hour(s)
RepeatTimeUnitMs : 3600000
RetryTimes : 3
RetryTimeout : 10
RetrySpecified : True
WaitForBackupCompletion : True
BackupCompetitionWaitingPeriodMin : 180
OptionsDaily : Enabled: False, DayNumberInMonth: Everyday,
Days: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
OptionsMonthly : Enabled: False, Time: 30/08/2012 22:00:00,
Day Number In Month: Fourth, Day Of Week: S
aturday, Months: January, February, March,
April, May, June, July, August, September,
October, November, December
OptionsPeriodically : Enabled: True, Period: 8 hour(s), ScheduleS
tring: <scheduler><Sunday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0</Sunday><Mon
day>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0
,0,0,0,0</Monday><Tuesday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</Tuesday><We
dnesday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
,0,0,0,0,0,0</Wednesday><Thursday>0,0,0,0,0
,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</Thu
rsday><Friday>0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1
,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</Friday><Saturday>0,0,0,
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0</
Saturday></scheduler>
OptionsContinuous : Enabled: False
OptionsBackupWindow : Veeam.Backup.Model.CBackupWindowOptions
NextRun : 08/31/2012 18:31:54
LatestRun : 31/08/2012 10:00:01

And finally Set (save) the Schedlued Options for the job

PS C:\Users\alemar>

Code: Select all

Set-VBRJobScheduleOptions -Job $j -Options $so

Job Name Type State Last Result Description
-------- ---- ----- ----------- -----------
SRI-BECSRI-FS01 New VMware Backup Stopped Success Created by...

If you do all this with the GUI Open you will see (hopefully) that after a few seconds the next start time gets updated...

Hope this could help someone else.


Alex

[ptmartin]

Paul, monthly and annual backup options are available since Veeam B&R v5. Please find it at the Schedule step of the job wizard. Thanks!

I need "First Day" and "Last Day" of the month as options. I've been asking for it since November of 2010 ..
http://forums.veeam.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 399#p21371

PLEASE and THANK YOU!!!

[Gostev]

Hi Paul, this functionality did not receive enough requests in the past years to justify implementation. It is not that you are being ignored, but with hundreds of pending features we have to pick top requested ones.

In any case, this specific request is out of topic in this thread, so I will remove the corresponding posts in a few days to keep the topic clean.

Thank you for understanding.

[Shralok]

Can you configure Veeam to run the full backup for a job at a specific time?

My job is periodically, ever 2 hours, with an active full on Fridays.

But I want it to start at 20:00 on Friday, not at 00:00.

Is there a way to set this? I've noticed that with the periodic backups, if enabled for an active full, it does the active full at 00:00 when I might want it at another time.

Would I just do a forever-incremental and then have a separate job that does a full at the specified time?

How do others do something like this, or get around it?

[stevenrodenburg1]

Would I just do a forever-incremental and then have a separate job that does a full at the specified time?

That is one way of doing it. It's clean and offers more control but it does mean maintaining two jobs for each VM and when Veeam does the dedupping itself, you loose some space-saving benefits because it causes two backup-files to be generated that are not "single instance stored".

If you decide to go this route: don't forget to exclude the time-frame from the full backup in the "schedule -> Time Periods Window" from the normal backup-job, to prevent the two jobs tripping on each others feet.

[Vitaliy S.]

Sharlok, you can use PowerShell scripts (discussed in this topic) to start your full backups at specific time.

[Shralok]

Sharlok, you can use PowerShell scripts (discussed in this topic) to start your full backups at specific time.

This seems to be above my head. Would I be able to get some help with this if I call in to Support?

Also I'd like to bump my feature request for starting full backups at a specific time, not just a specific day. This would help me because I could start one periodic backup's full at 12:00 AM, another at 5:00 AM, another at 10:00 AM, another at 3:00 PM, another at 8:00 PM all on the same day instead of having 5 jobs running/queued at once. This also gives me the ability to keep up with my periodic backups after they have completed their full rather than having the job sit in queue all day waiting to do the full and missing all of its incrementals.

[Vitaliy S.]

Shralok,

Please create a PowerShell script to start your backup job:

Long version:

Code: Select all

$job = Get-VBRJob | where {$_.Name –eq “JobName1”}
Start-VBRJob –Job ($job)

Short version:

Code: Select all

Get-VBRJob | where {$_.Name –eq “JobName1”} | Start-VBRJob

After that, navigate to Windows Task Scheduler and choose the time you want to this script. If you need more assistance, then please contact our support team for further assistance.

Hope this helps!

[Shralok]

Shralok,

Please create a PowerShell script to start your backup job:

Long version:

Code: Select all

$job = Get-VBRJob | where {$_.Name –eq “JobName1”}
Start-VBRJob –Job ($job)

Short version:

Code: Select all

Get-VBRJob | where {$_.Name –eq “JobName1”} | Start-VBRJob

After that, navigate to Windows Task Scheduler and choose the time you want to this script. If you need more assistance, then please contact our support team for further assistance.

Hope this helps!

Thank you - this will start an active full?

[Vitaliy S.]

It will just start the job, active full/synthetic or incremental choice will depend on your current job settings at this day. If you want to force active full run, then use this parameter in the PS script above.

[Shralok]

It will just start the job, active full/synthetic or incremental choice will depend on your current job settings at this day. If you want to force active full run, then use this parameter in the PS script above.

OK and just so I fully understand, I have another question:

Job1 is set to back up every 6 hours and it is also set to perform an Active Full on Wednesdays. However, it is running the Active Full at the same time as a bunch of other Active Full are scheduled, so I need to set the start time for the Active Full manually. This I have covered with PS scripts that you have provided.

However, will the Active Full still perform as regular or does Veeam recognize the PS command and "skip" the Active Full?

To illustrate this: the Active Full currently runs at 05:00. If I set the PS script to kick off an Active Full at 01:00, will the job still run at 05:00 or will Veeam set itself for "Next run" at 07:00 (01:00 +6 hours) for an incremental?

Basically, do I need to disable the Active Full checkbox in the job setup since I will be doing it with a PS script via Task Scheduler?

Separately, any idea on of this will be built into a next release? Having to set all of this manually is quite a pain... I bought Veeam because I thought it was simple

Thank you again

[veremin]

In fact, there is a built-in mechanism according to which job stays aware about full backup having been performed previously this day. In other words, job will not produce a second full backup at this day.

Yes, in case of using abovementioned PowerShell script along with Windows Scheduler, you can uncheck the Active Full checkbox.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[Shralok]

OK I ran a test job via PowerShell and this is the result:

Server1 (Full)
Start Time 13:35
End Time 15:01
Next Run 17:00

This job is set for every 6 hours. So why is it wanting to run again at 17:00 which is only 2 hours after a Full?

This is the root of my problem. I need to space out my 6 hour incrementals so they are not all firing off at the same time.

[veremin]

It is expected behavior indeed, since manual job run shouldn’t affect general schedule in any way.

Only in case of you going to job “Schedule” menu and making changes, will the job schedule settings be revisioned.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[Shralok]

It is expected behavior indeed, since manual job run shouldn’t affect general schedule in any way.

Only in case of you going to job “Schedule” menu and making changes, will the job schedule settings be revisioned.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

OK, so all 5 of my "every-6-hours" jobs go at 05:00, 11:00, 17:00, 23:00

Is there any way to separate them, for example making one of them go at 03:00, 09:00, 15:00, 21:00?

[foggy]

You can edit the job and set the required start time for it - the next start time is calculated by the time of job editing, when you press Finish at the last step.

[Gostev]

Just wanted to note that the ability to define start time for periodic jobs was added in 6.5 release, so there is no need to use scripts any longer.

[Shralok]

Just wanted to note that the ability to define start time for periodic jobs was added in 6.5 release, so there is no need to use scripts any longer.

To my knowledge, the only start time you can define is the minute on which the job will start. You cannot specify an overall start time for a periodic job (i.e. Run this 6-hour incremental starting every day at 04:00).

[ptmartin]

Hi Anton,
Still waiting on Monthly and Annual backup option to start on the FIrst "Day" or Last "Day". Also noted that the scheduler to only back up on certain days on the week in a given month seems to not work either. I have noted the same results in both recent versions in which (as an example) I have a backup job scheduled to run on the first Monday of every month. Somehow this is interpreted by the software to mean "run the backup job every 5 days."

Deduplication makes it not as big of an issue regarding storage requirement but the "point-in-time" capability is lost.

Any thoughts?

- Paul

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Paul,

Also noted that the scheduler to only back up on certain days on the week in a given month seems to not work either. I have noted the same results in both recent versions in which (as an example) I have a backup job scheduled to run on the first Monday of every month. Somehow this is interpreted by teh software to mean "run the backup job every 5 days."

Can you please contact our technical team to investigate this issue further, meanwhile I will ask our QC team to verify that as well.

Thanks!