Archive:The SEPuler - an event calendar 3.6

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The Backup


The SEPuler - an event calendar

The scheduling of SEP sesam backup and restore tasks is controlled by SEPuler, which acts as an electronic calendar and assistant performing all stored backup and restore events. The SEPuler is a permanently active background routine (daemon) constantly checking for events to be executed. When SEPuler finds a backup/restore task the execution of the corresponding program is initiated. Once the backup task has started, SEPuler will determine the next execution event for a cyclical backup/restore task and rewrite the event to the backup calendar. For example, if the SEPuler starts a weekly backup on Saturday, January 1, it will schedule a new weekly backup to occur on January 8.

Possible types of SEPuler events are backup, media, arbitrary command and newday.

Backups initiated with the Immediate start command from the GUI or command line are posted to the calendar as non-recurring events.

All events in Sesam start from the SEPuler schedule, even if they are unique, one-time tasks.

The schedule provides a normalized view of the event calendar showing completed, executing and future events. It can be viewed under GUI->Scheduling->Calendar Sheet.

Detailed information regarding completed backups, restores, etc. can be obtained here.

Schedules

System level backups are cyclical in nature. Sesam backup uses the SEPuler to create a cogent and easily maintained backup cycle.

A schedule describes the recurrence of an event and may be executed in minutes, hours, days, months or years. A schedule also allows for repetitive scheduling and absolute one-time execution.

A modification of a task may have an effect on all events within a schedule.

A schedule or task can be deactivated using either the GUI or command line.

A schedule can be used for any number of events; a particular task (Backup, Restore, etc.) can have events in several schedules. Sesam has implemented a system of priorities to prevent multiple tasks from conflicting with the execution of another task. If a daily backup is to take place at 11 p.m. on Saturday, and the weekly or monthly task is scheduled to begin at the same time, the highest priority precludes the lesser. In this case, the monthly task is flagged priority '3' and will override the weekly backup flagged '2' and the daily backup flagged '1'.

Setting Event Priorities

SEP sesam allows for complex backup event strategies by setting priorities from 1 the lowest priority to 99 the highest priority.

Within each Sesam day the system determines if there is a similar event with a higher priority setting that has already executed or is scheduled for execution. If there is a job or task waiting to execute with a lower priority than one in the queue it is suppressed.

For certain backup tasks several schedules can be created which may overlap on certain days. An example would be a daily backup '1' set to run at 11 p.m. while a weekly backup '2' is set to run at 12 midnight. The jobs with lower priorities will be suppressed.

Schedules with priority=0 are always executed.

Similar events are arranged by the particular type:

  • BACKUP-events are similar when their tasks are equal
  • MEDIA-events are similar when their drive number or drive group are equal
  • COMMAND-events are similar when their names are equal
Schedule  Time   Prio  
DAILY     20:00   1    daily incremental
WEEKEND   18:00   2    on weekend differential
MONTHEND  21:00   3    on month end full
  • at week end WEEKEND overrides DAILY
  • at month end MONTHEND overrides DAILY
  • at coinciding weekend with month end MONTHEND overrides WEEKEND

Blocking Events

A blocking event is an event of any type with a higher priority which inhibits another event from moving to active backup status. It may be used to prevent activation of certain events on specific days (e.g. end of year, end of fiscal year, holidays, etc).

Important Information
  • Event Blocking is accomplished by checking the requisite field during the configuration of a task.
  • Turning off a set event schedule can prevent the completion of all events used by this Event Schedule (Switch Execute in Schedule).
  • A Blocking Event works only on similar/similarly named events (Switch Blocked Event within the event).


Attention

  • switching off a schedule blocks the execution of all events using this schedule (select Execute in

Schedule).

  • a blocking event has an effect on similar events only ( select blocking event in Events).

A blocking event is created by marking the corresponding priority field during the configuration of an event.

Example A backup event executing the task CSRC executes daily with priority 2. A second backup event has also been created for CSRC, however, it is set to run only once a year on December 24th. It is set up as a 'blocking' event, since it has been set with a priority of '9'. Hence, the daily backup with priority '2' will be suppressed.

On December 24th the priority check within SEPuler recognizes that a higher prioritized backup CSRC exists (namely the blocking event) and blocks the execution of the backup of the daily event. Upon completion, the blocking event, set to run on Dec. 12, sends a message that it was activated.

The SEP sesam backup day - NEWDAY

SEP NEWDAY event resets the backup calendar. A NEWDAY switch set to Monday, 8 am, will cancel all pending jobs from the weekend and reset the SEPuler to begin looking at the current day's calendar settings. Sesam defines the time interval between two NEWDAY-events as a backup day. Since there is only one event for NEWDAY, it is set after the installation and only its schedule can be modified or deactivated.

Having set a daily NEWDAY-event at 08:00, the backup day extends until the morning of next day at 08:00. Backups, which run after midnight - the actual date change - are 'time stamped' with the previous day's date. The reason is quite simple, yet elegant. The data was created on day one, but not backed up until day 2. To do otherwise would create two backups for the same date, with a portion on backup day 1 and the remainder on backup day 2. With SEPsesam NEWDAY all media backed up from one day have the same date. Sesam NEWDAY gives System Managers the flexibility to extend backup routines to run after midnight and retain the backup date of the prior day. This is very useful when the computers requiring backup exceed the time allotment between End of Day and midnight.

Weekends are often used for full-backups. When this is the case, it is advisable to interrupt the NEWDAY event on the weekend. Define the execution as a weekly event but without execution since a Full Backup is performed instead.

Note: SEP sesam protocol or log files are all created with the date of the backup day.

Example: Backup day from 10.SEP.2007 08:00 until 11.SEP.2007 08:00 A backup starting on 11.SEP.2007 00:40 will be assigned to backup day 10.SEP.2007, it will appear in the daily protocol as 20070910.

Backups can be arranged in shifts.

A NEWDAY-event also executes the following tasks:

  • aborts all executing backups (data created after NEWDAY belong to the next backup sequence) This is also useful in complex network environments, when alerts are not transmitted to the backup server. These backup tasks would otherwise remain suspended but are terminated by the NEWDAY event.
  • deletes files and database entries for savesets which no longer exist
  • finalizes the Sesam status and daily log files
  • reorganizes the Sesam database
  • Advances the calendar (SEPuler) one day
  • restart of the SMS- and STPD-processes


To ensure error-free execution of the SEP sesam backup environment SEP NEWDAY should never be completely deactivated. By switching NEWDAY off you will prevent Sesam from reordering its database. SEP sesam will no longer be able to delete old log files and will cause the system to exceed system disk drive storage.