Adding an Automatic Synthetic Full Backup Schedule to a Schedule Policy

You can add an automatic synthetic full backup schedule to a schedule policy. The synthetic full backup schedule will apply to all jobs associated with the schedule policy.

Feature Support

• All agents that supports synthetic full backups support automatic synthetic full backups.

• All three options on the Synthetic Full sub-tab (see Step 6 in "Procedure", below) are supported by file system and VSA agents for both Indexing Version 1 and Indexing Version 2.

• The Run Synthetic Full - As needed to reclaim space option (see Step 6 in "Procedure", below) is not supported on agents that don’t support quota size computation.

• Database agents such as NDMP, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle, support all three options on the Synthetic Full sub-tab (see Step 6 in "Procedure", below). However, since synthetic full backups are not supported on these agents, these options trigger a full backup job instead of a synthetic full backup job.

About Automatic Synthetic Full Backup Schedules

• A full backup job and subsequent incremental backup jobs or differential backup jobs must exist before a synthetic full backup job can run. For information about how synthetic full backups are created, see Synthetic Full Backups.

• The system will not run a synthetic full backup job if no incremental or differential backups were run after the last full or synthetic full backup.

• The system will not run a synthetic full backup job if a full or synthetic full backup job has run in the past 7 days.

• For file systems and VMs, the system will run an automatic synthetic full backup job if at least one of the following conditions is met:

  • The current application size is greater than or equal to 1 GB.

  • The sum of the sizes of the backup jobs in the current cycle is greater than or equal to 1 GB.

  • The sum of the sizes of the backup jobs in the current cycle is greater than the current application size by more than 50%.

• If an automatic synthetic full backup job fails, the next attempt happens after 24 hours.

• If a manual synthetic full backup job is run for subclients associated with an automatic schedule, the schedule is skipped and the next job runs based on the value you entered in the option that you selected in Step 6 of the procedure, below.

• An automatic synthetic full backup schedule can’t be configured to run on a specific day/time of the week/month/year, as the schedule is triggered instead based on the three criteria mentioned above. Therefore, if there is a need to run a synthetic full backup on a specific day/time of the week/month/year (for example, on the last day of every month), then you should run a fixed time synthetic full backup schedule (that is, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly).

  Note

  In case of snap backups, if you are trying to consolidate the data on a given date of the month, then we recommend using a fixed time full snap backup schedule instead of fixed time synthetic full backup schedule. This will ensure that the backup copy that follows this snap backup contains all required data.

Before You Begin

• You must create a data protection schedule policy. For more information, see Creating Data Protection Schedule Policies.

Procedure

1. Open the schedule policy as follows:

   1. From the CommCell Browser, go to Policies > Schedule Policies.

   2. From the Schedule Policies pane, right-click the schedule_policy and then click Edit.

2. Under Tasks, click Add.

   The Backup Task Options dialog box appears.

3. On the Backup Options tab, click Synthetic Full.

4. Optional: To run an incremental backup before or after the synthetic full backup, select Run Incremental Backup, and then select one of the following:

   • To run an incremental backup before the synthetic backup, select Before Synthetic Full.

   • To run an incremental backup after the synthetic backup, select After Synthetic Full.

5. On the Schedule Pattern tab, type a name in the Schedule Name box, and then click Automatic.

6. On the Synthetic Full sub-tab, select one of the following options:

   Note

   The Synthetic Full sub-tab is available only after Synthetic Full is selected from the Backup Options tab.

   • Run Synthetic Full - Every X days. Defines the number of days that should pass between automatic synthetic full backups.

   • Run Synthetic Full - As needed for extended retention. Defines the number of days that should pass between synthetic full backup jobs based on the storage policy’s extended retention rules defined by the user. If extended retention rules are not configured, then the system ensures that a synthetic full backup job is run at least once every 90 days.

     Note

     Even if extended retention rules are configured and set to retain full backups that are less than 7 days (for example, Hourly Full backups or Daily Full backups), the synthetic full backup jobs will not run more frequently than once every 7 days.

     A storage policy’s extended retention rules may be defined in the following three settings in the CommCell Console:

     Note

     If you define more than one of these settings, the system will apply the setting with the least number of days. For example, if Basic Retention Rules for All Backups is set to 20 days, Extended Retention Rules for Full Backups is set to 30 days, and Automatic Select Full Backups is set to 60 days, the system will apply only the Basic Retention Rules for All Backups (20 days).

     • Basic Retention Rules for All Backups (CommCell Console > Storage Policy > Storage Policy Copy > Properties > Retention)

     • Extended Retention Rules for Full Backups (CommCell Console > Storage Policy > Storage Policy Copy > Properties > Retention)

     • Automatically select Full Backups at frequency (CommCell Console > Storage Policy > Properties > Selective Copy)

   • Run Synthetic Full - As needed to reclaim space. Automatically triggers a synthetic full backup job in order to reclaim space from backed up media. When you select this option, the schedule will run only when there is a large amount of space to be reclaimed.

7. Click OK.

What to Do Next

If you want to view the jobs that are associated with this schedule policy, see Viewing Jobs Associated with a Schedule Policy.