Creating a Backup Event

Overview

By creating a backup event, you select the backup level, set event priority and specify where to back up your data to. You can create an event for a specific task or for a task group. The latter enables you to trigger all the tasks in the task group with a single event.

Steps

1. From Main Selection -> Scheduling -> Schedules, right-click the schedule for which you want to create a new event then click New backup event.
2. Under Sequence control, set up the Priority of your backup event. SEPuler always executes the schedules with the highest priority first. The default priority level is 1, which is the lowest priority (the highest priority is 99). The only exception are schedules with priority 0, which override all other priorities and are always executed. For details, see Setting Event Priorities. You can also enable Blocking date. This option should be used together with high priority for special events. If checked, events of the same type but of a lower priority will be blocked, ensuring that the backup will be processed even if other backups are scheduled for the same time.
3. Under Parameter, specify the Backup level:
   A FULL backup always copies all data specified by the backup task, regardless of whether it has been changed or not. A save set created as FULL is the basic save set for subsequent DIFF or INCR save sets. While the backup time of a full backup can be significant, restore is fast and simple since only one backup save set is required. Information about the backup status is stored in the SEP sesam database. Note that the archive bits are not deleted on Windows systems. If you want to force-reset of the archive bits, you can enter the command -o clear_archive in the backup options.
   A DIFF (differential) backup saves only data which was created or changed after the last FULL save set had been created (of the same task). A differential backup is faster than a full backup, however, to restore the whole data source, first the save set of the full backup has to be restored followed by restore of the DIFF save set. For this, SEP sesam provides generation restore that enables browsing for and selecting for restore all generations of backed up files since the last full backup.
   An INCR (incremental) backup saves only data which was created or changed after the last backup (FULL, DIFF or INCR) of the same task. This is the fastest backup method and requires the least storage space. Restoring from incremental backups is the slowest, because it requires all related save sets to be copied back – the save set of the last full backup as well as all INC backups. You should consider the advantages of time and resources when planning your backup strategy. A combination of FULL backups stored to tape drives, and DIFF or INC backups stored to virtual disk media is a common method.
   A COPY backup is a full backup that has no influence on following differential (DIFF) or incremental (INCR) backups. For the treatment of archive bits, see FULL backup above. COPY backup is usually used for additional full backups, e.g., monthly backups, or backups for archiving, i.e. removal from storage.

   	Note
   	In case no initial FULL backup exists, differential (DIFF) or incremental (INCR) backups are automatically performed as FULL backups.

   For DIFF and INC backups, you can also set the Enforce FULL option. This option ensures that a FULL backup is run within the specified interval. For example, setting the number to 7 will enforce a full backup every seven days instead of an incremental or differential backup if the planned full backup fails. This ensures that a full backup is always performed within the specified time interval, in our example, once a week. If the value is 0, the system checks whether the last FULL backup was successful or run with warning for each backup performed. If the last FULL backup was terminated or run with error, the INCR/DIFF backup to be started is automatically performed as FULL backup. However, once you have decided on your backup schedule, you should consider the advantages and disadvantages of the enforced full backup frequency, as it is slower than other backup levels and has the highest storage space requirements.
4. From the Media pool drop-down list, select the target media pool to which the data will be backed up. If you want to enable source-side deduplication, you have to select the media pool which is combined with an Si3 deduplication store backend.
   
   • Optionally, specify the drive number of the drive that will be used to write the data. Typically, you use this if you have configured additional drives and you want to assign a dedicated drive exclusively for backup. For details, see option Create second drive (introduced in SEP sesam 4.4.3 Tigon) in Configuring a Data Store.
   • You can also define the Interface: from the drop-down list, select another configured TCP/IP-name of the client. You can use this option to direct the data flow over a particular network connection to enable smooth execution of backups without blocking other network activities.
5. Optionally, enable source-side deduplication (introduced in v. 4.4.3). This check box is only available if you have a configured Si3 deduplication store and you have previously selected the Si3-related media pool.
6. In the Follow-up Event field (introduced in v. 4.4.3) you can configure events that are triggered on the SEP sesam Server once the initial event has completed. You can set up a migration, a save set verify and other actions to be triggered immediately after a backup or other event is completed. For details, see Follow-up events.
7. Under Object, select the task to which you want to link this event. In our example, you would link the newly created event to the task bck_seagull_all_full.

You can view the status of your backup jobs by selecting Last backup state in the Main selection window. The backup status overview provides detailed information on the last run of backup jobs, including the task name, start and stop time of the last backup, backup level, data size, throughput, assigned media pool, etc.

	Tip
	As of version 4.4.3 Grolar, you can use Migration Task option in New backup event window or task event properties to chose a follow up migration task.