Scheduling Window: selecting a rotation scheme for automatic scheduling

 

The Scheduling Window is where you can select and configure your backup rotation scheme. Each hardware media type has a different group of backup rotation schemes, including a number of industry standard backup strategies which can be selected from and configured. You can also customize each scheme to more specific requirements, including differential, incremental and transaction log backups (SQL Method only).

A good backup scheme and rotation strategy provides you with data recovery capabilities, and allows for backups to be stored off-site. Most of the time, after data loss, the most recent backup available will be used. All good rotation schemes should allow you to restore from the previous working day. It is sometimes the case, however, that data loss may not be detected for days or weeks. An effective rotation scheme should therefore also allow for restore of data that is weeks, or even months old. This is best achieved by archiving data to some of your backup media. Archived data is stored permanently and not overwritten. For example, it is recommended that yearly and quarterly media be archived. That way, data will be available for many years to come. Offsite storage is also recommended for archived data where possible with media being stored offsite in a secure location.

Typically, the better protection a scheme provides the more backup media it requires. You can choose from a variety of backup schemes, depending on your requirements and the backup media you have available.

To access the Scheduling Window:

  1. Click Jobs in the navigation bar
  2. Right-click on the desired job and select Edit.
  3. Click Scheduling on the left menu.

To change the rotation scheme for a job:

  1. Click Change at the top of the Scheduling Window.
  2. You can then select from a variety media rotation schemes that are relevant to the hardware device you are using.

The following list shows the media rotation schemes available to each backup hardware device:

Scheduling options
Specify what days to perform backups on, as well as the time of day the backup should run.

Archiving options *
If you are using a scheme with weekly, monthly or yearly backup media, you can specify here what days the weekly, monthly, and yearly backups should occur on.

Number of weeks in backup pool *
If you are using a scheme with N-weekly media (ie. a set number of weeks from which data can be restored from) you can set how the number of weeks in your backup pool here and the start date for the schedule.

Manual backup defaults *
No backups are automatically scheduled but you can define some quick settings (mode, method, etc) and start a manual backup here.

Customizing the backup schedule
Advanced users can choose to schedule custom backup schemes that are tailored towards specified backup requirements. Custom schedules can involve different backup methods such as full, differential, incremental, transaction log (SQL database) or automatic (Exchange mailbox); as well different backup modes such as overwrite, append, or automatic.

Backing up multiple times daily
Using certain backup methods1 in BackupAssist you can choose to have the same backup run multiple times a day. This option is useful if your data changes frequently throughout the day and you want to be able to restore data from multiple points of time.

* Whether this option appears depends on the media rotation scheme you have selected
 1The option to run multiple backups is currently only available for Windows Imaging jobs.