Administrator's Guide


Tailoring Schedules

To control more precisely when and how your schedules run, you can specify values for schedule parameters instead of accepting the defaults when you define or update schedules.

Schedule name
All schedules must have a unique name, which can be up to 30 characters.

Initial start date, time, and day
You can specify a past date, the current date, or a future date for the initial start date for a schedule with the STARTDATE parameter.

You can specify a start time, such as 6 p.m. with the STARTTIME parameter.

You can also specify the day of the week on which the startup window begins with the DAYOFWEEK parameter. If the start date and start time fall on a day that does not correspond to your value for the day of the week, the start date and time are shifted forward in 24-hour increments until the day of the week is satisfied.

If you select a value for the day of the week other than ANY, then depending on the values for PERIOD and PERUNITS, schedules may not be processed when you expect. Use the QUERY EVENT command to project when schedules will be processed to ensure that you achieve the desired result.

Duration of a startup window
You can specify the duration of a startup window, such as 12 hours, with the DURATION and DURUNITS parameters. The server must start the scheduled service within the specified duration but does not necessarily complete it within that period of time. If the schedule needs to be retried for any reason, the retry attempt must begin before the startup window elapses or the operation does not restart.

Make the window duration long enough so that all client nodes scheduled for that window have a chance to start the operation. You may have to set the window to a longer period if the number of client nodes processing the schedule is greater than the number of available scheduled sessions.

If the schedule does not start during the startup window, the server records this as a missed event in the database. To identify any schedules that may have been missed, you can get an exception report from the server for events. For more information, see "Querying Events".

How often to run the scheduled service
You can set the schedule frequency based on a period of hours, days, weeks, months, or years with the PERIOD and PERUNITS parameters. To have weekly backups, for example, set the period to one week with PERIOD=1 and PERUNITS=WEEKS.

Expiration date
You can specify an expiration date for a schedule with the EXPIRATION parameter if the services it initiates are required for only a specific period of time. If you set an expiration date, the schedule is not used after that date, but it still exists. You must delete the schedule to remove it from the database.

Priority
You can assign a priority to schedules with the PRIORITY parameter. For example, if you define two schedules for one client node, and they have the same startup window, the server runs the schedule with the highest priority first. A schedule with a priority of 1 is started before a schedule with a priority of 3.

Administrative schedule name
If you are defining or updating an administrative command schedule, you must specify the schedule name.

Type of schedule
If you are updating an administrative command schedule, you must specify TYPE=ADMINISTRATIVE on the UPDATE command. If you are defining a new administrative command schedule, this parameter is assumed if the CMD parameter is specified.

Command
When you define an administrative command schedule, you must specify the complete command that is processed with the schedule with the CMD parameter. These commands are used to tune server operations or to start functions that require significant server or system resources. The functions include:

Whether or not the schedule is active
Administrative command schedules can be active or inactive when they are defined or updated. Active schedules are processed when the specified command window occurs. Inactive schedules are not processed until they are made active by an UPDATE SCHEDULE command with the ACTIVE parameter set to YES.

Example: Defining and Updating an Administrative Command Schedule

To schedule the backup of the ARCHIVEPOOL primary storage pool, enter:

define schedule backup_archivepool type=administrative
cmd='backup stgpool archivepool recoverypool'
active=yes startime=20:00 period=2

This command specifies that, starting today, the ARCHIVEPOOL primary storage pool is to be backed up to the RECOVERYPOOL copy storage pool every two days at 8 p.m.

To update the BACKUP_ARCHIVEPOOL schedule, enter:

update schedule backup_archivepool type=administrative
startime=22:00 period=3

Starting with today, the BACKUP_ARCHIVEPOOL schedule begins the backup every three days at 10 p.m.


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