About Schedules

A Schedule defines when an operation should start or a period within which an operation is allowed or prevented from occurring.

The Schedule Wizard can be accessed from the Schedules Inventory or by clicking Manage Schedules in the Policy Wizard when configuring a Backup, Snapshot, Replicate or automated Mount operation.

Central to the operation of the Schedule Manager is the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). This setting defines how regularly a backup should be triggered. An RPO of 12 hours tells the Schedule Manager to schedule a backup at that interval, whilst also obeying any other user-defined constraints imposed on the schedule. For example, a backup can be allowed to occur only between 12am and 6am, and this restriction must be adhered to even if the RPO requires backups to occur every hour. See the Policy Wizard for details about RPOs.

Trigger Time, RPO Backup Window and RPO Exclude Window can be used in any combination within a single schedule, such that a backup will occur if one of the following is true:

While backups occur either when a policy's Recovery Point Objective dictates, a scheduled Trigger Time or a manually injected backup event, the precise time at which they occur is subject to a number of factors:

• At the most basic level, the time at which the rules are activated determines when the initial and successive RPO based backups occur, unless affected by other factors.
  CAUTION:
  For host based and hardware storage based backups, the first backup occurs automatically after the rules distribution is completed, irrespective of RPO.
  Figure. Data flow activation time (15:45) determines RPO backup times
• The RPO and/or Trigger Time defined in the policy determines when the next RPO backup will occur, relative to the previous RPO or Trigger Time backup.
  Note: A backup event injected manually via the UI or CLI does not affect the timing of RPO based backups.
  Figure. RPO backups occur relative to the time of the previous RPO or Trigger Time backup (18:05 + 8)
• If a backup is scheduled to occur Weekly or Monthly then:
  • If the Time is set to All Day then the backup will recur at the time of day that the rules were activated.
    Figure. Data flow activation time (15:45) determines 'All Day' backup times
  • If the Time is set to Scheduled Time then the backup will recur at the Start time or, if this can't be achieved, at the earliest opportunity within the Duration specified after the Start time.
    Figure. Start time (06:00) determines 'Trigger Time' backup times
• If a backup event is injected manually via the UI or CLI then a backup will occur at the time the event is received, but will not affect the timing of existing RPO backups.
  Figure. Manual injected backup events occur at the time the event is received (17:54, …)
• The existence of an RPO Backup Window will prevent RPO based backups from occurring outside the defined window. Any RPO based backups that are scheduled outside of the backup window will be deferred until immediately after the next backup window opens (the operation is greyed on the diagram to indicate deferral). Successive RPO based backups will be rescheduled to occur relative to the deferred backup time.

  Note: Backup events injected manually via the UI or CLI are not affected in any way by backup windows.
  Figure. RPO based backups are deferred and rescheduled (21:00, …) if outside a backup window
  Figure. Manually injected backup events are not affected by backup windows
• The existence of an RPO Exclude Window period will prevent both Trigger Time and RPO based backups from occurring within the exclusion period. Any Trigger Time or RPO based backups that occur inside the exclusion period will be deferred until immediately after the exclusion period ends (the operation is greyed on the diagram to indicate deferral). Successive RPO based backups will be rescheduled to occur relative to the deferred backup. Trigger Time based backups proceed at their normally scheduled times outside of an RPO Exclude Window.
  Note: Backup events injected manually via the UI or CLI are not affected in any way by exclusion windows.
  Figure. RPO backups are rescheduled (21:01, …) if they occur inside an exclude period
  Figure. A Trigger Time backup is deferred (17:01) if it occurs inside an exclude period
  Figure. Manually injected backup events are not affected by exclusion periods