Specifying When Backup Starts

Two attributes in the Clients resource, Group and Client Priority, determine what time a client's scheduled backup begins.

Backup Group

Backup groups determine what time the scheduled backup starts. For each client, in the Clients resource, you select one or more backup groups from the list of available backup groups in the Groups attribute. Use the Groups resource to create custom backup groups. For more information on backup groups, see "Backup Group Configuration ".

Client Priority

The Client Priority attribute in the Clients resource specifies the order in which participating clients are probed for the information needed to complete the save set worklist for that client. The Client Priority attribute can contain a value between 1 and 1000. The lower the value, the higher the priority.

The client with the lowest value for the Client Priority attribute is placed at the top of the list to be contacted by the Backup server. If you do not specify a value in the priority attribute, the contact order is random.

While the Client Priority attribute specifies the order of client contact, many variables affect the order in which clients complete their backups, including the following scenarios:

• The backup operation on a client does not begin until the worklists for each of the save sets on the client are complete.

• The amount of work can vary greatly from one client to the next.

• If a client hangs and times out, it is put at the end of the list of clients to be contacted. To increase the number of times each client in a group is retried before the backup attempt is considered unsuccessful, change the value in the Client Retries attribute in the Groups resource.