Managing backup schedules in the vCenter

To help you manage scheduled backups, you can view the list of IBM Spectrum Protect™ schedules that are created for the vCenter.

About this task

Schedules are set up by the IBM Spectrum Protect server administrator or VMware administrator to automatically back up virtual machines regularly.

A summary of the schedules is displayed in a table that is sortable and filterable on the columns to help you identify and compare the properties of the schedules. For example, you can sort on the Repeats column to see which schedules are run the most often.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Web Client, click IBM Spectrum Protect > Manage > Schedules.
  2. Select a vCenter server from the drop-down list. The schedules that are defined for the vCenter are shown.
  3. To sort the entries in the table, click a column heading.

    Information such as the name, start time, frequency, and description of each schedule is shown in the table. You can also see the datacenter that is valid for a schedule. To show more columns, use the scroll bar at the bottom of the table.

    The Compatible column displays whether a schedule is compatible with the Schedule (IBM Spectrum Protect) category and tag. Only compatible schedules are supported for tagging and can be assigned to inventory objects in the vSphere Web Client. For information about compatible schedules, see the description for the Schedule tag in Supported data protection tags.

    The details of each selected schedule are shown in the Schedule Details section of the window.
    • The Data movers field shows the data movers that are associated with the schedule.
    • The Objects field shows the inventory objects that are assigned to the schedule. Any virtual machines that are contained in these inventory objects are affected by this schedule.
    • To help you diagnose problems with the schedule, the Options field shows the IBM Spectrum Protect options that are defined in the schedule. If necessary, you can validate this information with the IBM Spectrum Protect administrator.
      Tip: Compatible schedules do not use the Options field to identify the inventory of VMs to back up.
  4. Optional: To modify the data movers that are associated with the schedule to use for backup operations, select a schedule and click Edit to open the Edit Schedules window. You can edit only a schedule that is compatible with tagging.
    1. In the Data movers list, select one or more data movers to use to back up the VMs in the inventory objects that are protected by the schedule.

      By default, the selected data movers are assigned to those VMs that either do not have data mover assignments, or are assigned to an invalid data mover for this schedule. Existing data mover assignments that are still valid for the schedule are not overwritten.

      Requirement: If you want to use the same data mover in multiple schedules, ensure that the run times of the schedules do not overlap. The data mover can perform backup operations for only one schedule at a time.
    2. If you selected more than one data mover and want to redistribute the workload among the data movers, click Full rebalance of data movers. This option assigns the selected data movers to all virtual machines in this schedule.
      During a data mover rebalance:
      • VMs are sorted by size (storage usage).
      • Data movers are assigned to the VMs by size, with the largest VM being assigned to the first data mover on the list, the next largest VM assigned to the next data mover, and so on.
      • Existing data mover assignments are overwritten.
      For example, if there are only three data movers (DM1, DM2, and DM3) and 10 VMs in a datacenter, the following assignments take place:
      1. DM1 is assigned to the largest VM.
      2. DM2 is assigned to the second largest VM.
      3. DM3 is assigned to the third largest VM.
      4. DM1 is assigned to the fourth largest VM, and so on.
    3. To save your changes and close the Edit Schedules window, click OK.