4 4 3 Beefalo:SEPuler - an event calendar

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Media Strategy

SEPuler – an event calendar

SEPuler is a process that controls the scheduling of all SEP sesam tasks, such as backup, migration, replication, restore and other tasks. It acts as an electronic calendar and assistant performing all SEP sesam data protection events.

SEPuler is a permanently active background routine (daemon), constantly searching for events to be executed. When SEPuler finds a scheduled task or manually triggered event, the execution of the corresponding program is initiated.

Once the event has started, SEPuler will determine the next execution event for a cyclical task and rewrite the event to the task calendar. For example, if SEPuler starts a weekly backup on January 1, it will schedule a new weekly backup to occur on January 8.

Backup, migration, replication, media event, command event, restore and newday are all types of SEPuler events.

Events initiated with the Immediate start command from the GUI or command line are posted in the calendar as non-recurring events.

All events in SEP sesam start from the SEPuler schedule, even if they are unique, non-recurring tasks. An overview of scheduled as well as completed, expired events and their current status is provided by Calendar sheet from the Main selection -> Scheduling -> Calendar Sheet.

GUI schedules Beefalo V2.jpg

Schedules

Schedules are used for setting events to occur at a specific time. A schedule is a timetable that defines the cyclic behavior of an event, i.e., when the event is to take place and how frequently to repeat it. The fact that a schedule exists does not automatically mean that an event is executed.

Only when one or more events (backup, migration, command, etc.) are assigned to the schedule, it becomes active. The entries in the schedule are then picked up by the SEPuler. Modifying a schedule affects all the events assigned to that schedule.

Flexible scheduling features include the following:

Any number of events of the same type can be linked to one or more schedules.
A task (backup, migration, replication, media action, restore and command event) may have events in several schedules.
Schedules provide User defined option that allows you to create a calendar which is customized according to your country or company specific requirements. You can use it to exclude scheduled jobs from running on specific dates, such as holidays, or to schedule additional jobs on selected dates. For details, see Creating Custom Calendar.
A schedule's execution can be deactivated: a schedule will remain displayed as shaded (gray) in the list of schedules, but the related jobs will not run.
The option Without Schedule is available, if you set the value for enable_gui_events_without_schedule in the Defaults window (Configuration -> Defaults -> Settings tab) to 1 manually. It shows all backup events which are not assigned to a schedule. Such events are typically created for external backups, where the external applications manage the backup scheduling. For details, see Schedules.

Event Priority

For complex event strategies, event priority is used by SEPuler for resolving scheduling conflicts. Priorities can be assigned to events, from lowest (1, default) to highest (99). For each SEP sesam backup day all scheduled events are checked according to their type and priority to see whether the events of the same type (for example, a backup) with the same task name and higher priority have already expired or are still planned to run; in the latter case, SEP sesam suppresses execution of lower priority events of the same type. In other words, if there are more equal events (see equality of events) of the same type scheduled on the same backup day, only the event with a higher priority is executed. This prevents the events that might be linked to several schedules, which overlap on certain days, to be executed except for the one with the highest priority.

If all equal events of the same type have the same priority (for example, the default – 1), then all of them are executed. Events with priority 0 are not checked for dependency of event priorities and are always executed.

Priorities can be used together with Blocking date option.

	Note
	Event priority determines which job in a queue will first be executed regardless of the equality of events. If there are jobs in the queue and a new event with a higher priority is activated by SEPuler, this job will first access a busy device.

Equality of Events

The equality of events is managed according to their type:

Backup events are equal if their task name is the same. The same is true for each individual event type: migration, replication, command and restore event.
Media events are equal if their drive number or drive group number is the same.

Example In the following example, backup of the directory /etc of the client stratum1 with the task name stratum1_etc is started via three different schedules.

Name	Time	Priority	Task
Daily	8 p.m.	1	daily incremental
Weekly	6 p.m.	2	differential on the weekend
Monthly	9 p.m.	3	full at the end of the month

On weekends, the weekend event is performed instead of the daily event (prio 2 overrides prio 1).
At the end of the month, the end of month event is performed instead of the daily event (prio 3 overrides prio 1).
If the end of the month and the weekend coincide, then the end of month event is performed instead the Weekend event (prio 3 overrides prio 2).

Event priority Beefalo V2.jpg

Blocking Events

A blocking event is any type of event with a higher priority that obstructs another event and prevents it from moving to active backup status. It may be used to prevent the activation of certain events on specific days (e.g., end of year, end of fiscal year, holidays, etc).

Note

* A blocking event is created by selecting the Blocking date checkbox during the configuration of an event.

Switching off a schedule blocks the execution of all events using this schedule (Execution off option in the schedule).
A blocking event only affects other events with the same name when schedules are overlapping.
A blocking event suppresses any job with the same task name at respective (SEP sesam backup day) day, regardless of whether it is scheduled to be run before, during or after the blocking event.

Example

A backup event that executes the task stratum1_etc is configured to run daily with priority 2. A second backup event for the same task stratum1_etc is only scheduled for December 24th every year as a blocking event with priority 9. On December 24th, the priority check detects the stratum1_etc backup with higher priority and overrides the execution of the daily backup. The blocking event itself does not create an entry in the job status, but sends a notification that it was activated.

SEP sesam backup day – NEWDAY

SEP sesam Newday is a predefined SEP sesam daily event that resets the backup event calendar and is managed by SEPuler. It is accessible under schedules: Main Selection -> Scheduling -> Schedules. A Newday event is used by SEP sesam to reorder its database and enable uninterrupted activity of SEP sesam processes. It must therefore never be completely disabled, otherwise it will cause SEP sesam to stop working properly. See Newday event functions.

How it works – defining a backup day

Newday is used to define a new backup day. All SEP sesam protocol and log files are created with the date of the backup day.

If a Newday event is set to 08:00 (SEP sesam default), the backup day is defined from 8am of the current day to 8am of the next day. Backups that run after midnight – the actual date change – are given a timestamp with the date of the previous day to avoid creating backups for the same data (one saveset for day 1 and another for day 2).

With SEP sesam Newday, all media backed up from one sesam day, e.g., from Monday 8am to Tuesday 7.59am, will have the same date. SEP sesam Newday gives system administrators the flexibility to extend backup routines to run after midnight and retain the backup date of the prior day. This is very useful when the computers that need to be backed up exceeds the time span between the end of the day and midnight.

When checking in SEP sesam GUI, for example, backups by state, the selected/displayed date always refers to the sesam backup day with the timespan of hours defined by Newday. In the above example of a defined backup day (from 8am of the current day to 8am of the next day), 13 November would define the backup day from Monday, 13.11. from 8am, to Tuesday, 14.11. to 7.59am. Keep in mind that the backup day by default does not correspond to the calendar day.

	Note
	To ensure error-free execution of the SEP sesam backup environment, SEP Newday should never be completely deactivated. Switching Newday off prevents SEP sesam from reordering its database. SEP sesam will no longer be able to delete old log files and will cause the system to exceed system disk drive storage.

Besides resetting the event calendar and setting a new backup day, Newday also performs the following:

Deletes files and database entries for savesets that no longer exist.
Finalizes the SEP sesam status and daily log files.
Reorganizes the SEP sesam database.
Advances the event calendar (SEPuler) by one day.
Restarts the SMS- and STPD-processes.
Starts garbage collection on Si3 and Si3 NG deduplication stores.
Deletes log files and database entries for savesets which no longer exist on SEP sesam Server and RDS.

Preventing Newday from cancelling running activities

You can set a Newday behaviour to allow uninterrupted execution of SEP sesam operations. The activities that are still running can be cancelled by the Newday event, or they can continue to run through Newday. If you want to enable active tasks to continue running through Newday event, go to Schedules -> Newday event properties -> tab Parameter, and select the option Continue all running events for handling running events during Newday. Note that by default the option Cancel all running events is selected.

If the Newday is configured as explained above, it does not interrupt any ongoing backup when it starts, so the Newday can be set to be active at all times.

Newday event Apollon.jpg

Enabling Newday to block events

SEP sesam provides options to prevent activation of events on certain days, such as holidays. A blocking event is an event that prevents another event from being activated. You can create a newday blocking event that can impact all tasks and you can select which types of events should be blocked.

	Note
	It is not recommended to use the existing SEP sesam NEWDAY event as a blocking event. Create a new custom newday event and define that one as a blocking event.

Steps:

Select a schedule that does not have any events or create a new schedule. Right-click the schedule and click New Newday Event.
Set the priority for this event. Note that the priority of this blocking event must be higher than the priorities of the event you want to block. The lowest priority is 1 and the highest priority is 99. For more information see event priorities.
Enable option Blocking date.
Select the types of events you want to block. You can select only certain event types or all events.
Click OK to add the blocking newday event to the schedule.

Blocking newday event Apollon.jpg

Preventing the sm_alarm or sm_notify interface from blocking the Newday execution

If you use the SEP sesam email notification based on the sm_alarm and/or sm_notify interface scripts, be aware that adding some long-running actions that take a lot of time can block the execution of the sm_newday event and possibly other SEP sesam actions, such as backups.

Starting with version 5.0.0 Jaglion, you can use the submit_notify option to let these scripts run in the background and prevent them from blocking SEP sesam actions.

Steps

From Main Selection -> Scheduling -> Schedules, double-click the Newday event.
In the properties of the Newday event (tab Parameter), enter submit_notify in the Options field and click OK.

For details on using SEP sesam email notifications and enabling interfaces, see How to Configure Mail Notification.