This tab provides Execution priority and Bandwidth settings. Execution priority
Drag the slider to select your preferred Execution priority (for Windows and Unix operating systems). This affects the priority of the Agent program on the computer running the backup or recovery.
High is the highest priority, and Low takes the lowest CPU usage priority. The Normal (middle) value is usually adequate, depending on the number of concurrent applications that run on the computer during the assigned Job. Bandwidth
This allows you to control the amount of network bandwidth consumed by the Agent during backup and recovery operations. Controlling bandwidth in this way is often called bandwidth throttling.
For example, you might want restrictions on daytime ad-hoc backup/recovery so that online users are not affected, and then unlimited usage at night so that scheduled backups will run as fast as possible.
This configuration includes:
• Maximum bandwidth (upper limit), in kilobits per second, to be consumed during each backup and recovery
• Period of time during the day that throttling is in effect. Only one time window can be specified, and outside the window, no throttling takes place.
• The days of the week that throttling is in effect
The time period will appear in 24-hour format, or AM/PM format, depending on how the clock is set on the system running the Agent.
The setting is determined at the start of the Job. The setting is adjusted dynamically if the Job crosses a throttling window boundary.
The throttling setting applies globally to all backup and recovery Jobs, but it may be overridden (for ad-hoc backups, for example) by temporarily resetting the bandwidth to Use all available bandwidth. Restore operations can override the setting through the Use all available bandwidth setting in Advanced Restore Options.
Bandwidth throttling applies across multiple Jobs running on a single Agent. So each Job running on the same Agent will share the allocated bandwidth equally.
Power Management Tab
This tab is only available for Agents that include the Agent Assistant. This tab allows you to specify what you want to happen regarding your backups
(Windows Agents only) in response to these conditions:
• They have failed, or they have been missed.
• The system tries to shut down.
• The system tries to hibernate.
• The system detects a network loss/presence.
You will be notified of the status of your backups and the network through the System Tray icon (Agent Assistant). The icon may show Ready (not processing and the network is up), Processing (a backup is running), or Not Ready (network connectivity is down).
If you pause the mouse pointer on the System Tray icon for the Agent machine, the current status of the Agent will display.
Hibernation/Standby
(This option is not available for Windows Vista or newer versions of Windows.) Agent users should not enable hibernation or standby on their desktops or laptops. If the computer is powered down, or off, scheduled backups will not occur at the scheduled time.
If the computer has been powered off (or placed in hibernate or standby mode), you can configure it to automatically start or restart scheduled backup Jobs if they were missed or failed to run. This will occur when the computer is powered on.
You can log off, but the computer must continue to run the operating system and stay connected to the network for the backups to run properly.
Note that if you are logged off, there will not be any prompt messages on the Agent machine from the Agent Assistant. It will run as if the prompts for
Advanced Schedule Options
You have two choices when you decide how to handle scheduled backups that may have been missed or failed. This is usually due to hibernation or standby being on, the network being unavailable, or the computer being powered off (shut down).
Start scheduled backup Jobs if they have been missed
If this option is enabled, the scheduler will attempt to start any backups that are still waiting to run.
Note: If backup schedules overlap, only the last one will have its status reported.
Restart scheduled backup Jobs if they have failed
If any backup Jobs have started, but fail to finish because of network failure or the computer shutting down, those Jobs will be started again.
In either case, you can choose to be prompted before the backup Jobs are started or rerun. Use the check boxes below each option for this.
Note: If the same Job has been missed several times in a row, only one occurrence of it will run when the backup does occur. So, for example, if you have a backup (the same Job) scheduled for midnight every day, and your computer is off for three days, you will get one backup missed and rerun (rather than three).
Shutdown Options
To prevent the computer from entering shutdown mode when there are backup Jobs running, enable the first option in this section. The next attempted
shutdown will run if no backup is running.
The second option can provide a prompt for you at the time of shutdown. The third option only applies to pre-Vista Windows systems. It can provide a prompt to ask whether or not you want to do a backup before the system shuts down.
Note: For the second and third options, the operating system will attempt to stop all running tasks before shutdown. You will see a message that it is
attempting to end a program called
Maestro.exe
. This is the Agent Assistant portion of the Agent.Do not click the End Now button for
Maestro.exe
. Wait until it says that the program is not responding, and then click Cancel.If you do click End Now, the computer will shut down without doing a backup. (This may or may not be as you intended.) Also, if you stop the backup and a shutdown is pending, the computer will not shut down.
Hibernation Options
Enable this option to prevent the computer from going into sleep or hibernation mode if there are backup Jobs running:
Prevent standby/hibernation when backups are running The next time a standby/hibernation tries to start, and there is no backup running, the standby or hibernation will occur.
Miscellaneous - Detect network presence
If the network fails, the Agent Assistant pauses the scheduler. It resumes when the network becomes available again. This prevents scheduled backups from starting and failing to connect to the Vault.
When the network returns, the scheduler will resume. Depending on the scheduler options that are set, missed or failed backups can run. The time interval to check for network presence can be Never, 1 minute, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes.
Never means that the Agent Assistant will not detect network outage, so backups can still run and fail. That is, the scheduler will not stop. This option is normally used for troubleshooting.
You should check for network availability every 1, 5 or 10 minutes. If a backup fails because of a network outage, it can be restarted if you have enabled the missed/failed fields under Advanced Schedule Options.
Every 5 minutes is a good default setting. It does not require much overhead, and it means that your backups can start/continue when network presence is detected.
The status of the System Tray icon will change to Not Ready if the network connection is lost for longer than the period defined.