Scheduling advanced functions for data management

Information and tips on data management tasks timings and schedule planning.

In most environments, it is typical to have an off-peak window of time at some point during the day. This time can be used to conduct data management tasks such as nightly backup, snapshots, and asynchronous replication. You need to ensure that you have some time of lower SMB file activity on the server and that this time window is sufficient for the planned advanced functions to complete.

When running advanced functions that require a file system policy scan such as backup, asynchronous replication, policy invocations, Advanced File Management (AFM), or Active Cloud Engine® (ACE) cache pre-population, schedule them sufficiently apart to allow adequate time to complete the policy scan. The planned time gap helps to avoid two overlapping policy scans.

In a typical system, a couple of hours gap between two advanced functions is sufficient. However, you need to review the logs of each function to ensure that the scan completes before the next scheduled advanced function starts. If necessary, make adjustments like increasing the time gap, adding more protocol nodes, more disks for metadata, or adding Solid State Disks (SSDs) for metadata for IBM Storage Scale gateway configuration.

As you plan data management tasks for your environment, you need to ensure adequate resources are available to complete all data management tasks. If these tasks do not complete in the expected time window or they impact overall performance of the system during peak hours, consider adding additional resources such as dedicated protocol nodes for backup or extra storage resources to enhance storage response time. This can also eliminate bottlenecks.