Backup Time

If you selected Recovery point set as the backup type, you can specify how frequently a new recovery point set should be started. Such frequency lets you control the size of a recovery point set. If you specify Monthly and the backup is scheduled to run daily, more recovery points are created. However, the amount of required disk space depends on the amount of data that is written to the hard drive during that time. You can customize these options further by clicking Advanced on the Backup Time panel of the wizard.

Your options for starting new recovery point sets include the following:

• Start new recovery set (base)

  • Weekly

    A new recovery point set is created on the first scheduled or manual backup of the week. Or, if you clicked Custom a new recovery point set is created at the specified time on each day of the week that you checked.

  • Monthly

    A new recovery point set is created on the first scheduled or manual back of the month. Or, if you clicked Custom a new recovery point set is created at the specified time on each day of the month that you checked.

  • Quarterly

    A new recovery point set is created on the first scheduled or manual backup every three months from the date when you selected this option.

  • Yearly

    A new recovery point set is created on the first scheduled or manual backup of the year, once a year on the date that you selected this option.

• Distribute strategy evenly across (minutes)

  (This option is available when you click Advanced on the Backup Time panel in the wizard.) If you save recovery points to a network destination, you have the option to distribute the job evenly across a specified number of minutes (0-1440) to all computers assigned to the job.

  For example, suppose you want to distribute a backup in 60 minutes to 120 computers. The backup would begin on two computers at the indicated start time. Then, two more computers would begin the backup one minute later, and so forth. The last two computers would begin backing up 60 minutes after the first two computers began their backup.

  This option helps you avoid having to run the job at the same start time for all computers. Doing so can sometimes cause a denial of service condition on the network, the recovery point destination, or both.

Note:
If you choose to archive recovery points, you might consider creating recovery point sets more frequently to keep the size of your recovery point sets smaller.

Advanced options

If you selected Recovery point set as the backup type, your options include the following:

• Run more than once per day

  Check this option if you want to protect a system or data that changes frequently.

  • Time between backups

    Select the maximum amount of time to elapse before the next backup.

  • Number of times

    Specify the number of times that you want the backup to occur, beginning from the start time.

  • Automatically optimize

    This option helps you manage the hard disk of the backup destination. Useful if you chose to create more than one incremental recovery point per day. Recovery points, especially independent recovery points, can use up disk space. Automatic optimization is a way to minimize the use of disk space.

    Never

    No deletion of incremental recovery points is performed.

    Every twelve hours

    A deletion of incremental recovery points that are 12 hours old (or older) is performed every 12 hours. Also, after the first incremental of the day is taken, all incremental files from two days previous are consolidated to a single file.

    Every four hours

    A deletion of incremental recovery points that are four hours old (or older) is performed every four hours. Also, after the first incremental of the day is taken, all incremental files from two days previous are consolidated to a single file.

• Distribute strategy evenly across (minutes)

  See the description in the first row (Backup Time) of this table.

Event Triggers–General

If you selected Recovery point set as the backup type, you can select the events that can trigger the automatic creation of incremental recovery points. For example, at the time you log off of a client computer, you can have Backup Exec System Recovery create an incremental recovery point.

You can specify when a backup occurs for the following types of events:

• Any application is installed

  Creates an incremental recovery point at the time users begin to install a software application on their computer.

• Specified applications are launched

  Creates an incremental recovery point at the time users run a specified software application on their computer.

• Any user logs on to the computer

  Creates an incremental recovery point when users log on to Windows on their computer.

• Any user logs off from the computer

  Creates an incremental recovery point at the moment users log off from Windows on their computer (but does not shut down Windows).

• Data added to the drive exceeds

  Creates an incremental recovery point when the added data on a drive exceeds an amount (in megabytes) that you specify.

Event Triggers–ThreatCon Response

Symantec ThreatCon is Symantec's early threat warning system to give people and systems adequate warning to protect data and systems against attack.

You can configure a trigger in a backup job to detect a change in the threat level whenever client computers are connected to the Internet. When the threat level meets or exceeds the level you specify, Backup Exec System Recovery automatically starts a backup job. You can specify a different ThreatCon level for each backup job.

• Do Not Monitor – Disable

  The backup job does not start when a change in the ThreatCon level is detected

• Level 4 – Extreme

  Extreme global security threats are in progress

• Level 3 – High

  An isolated security threat is in progress

• Level 2 – Elevated

  Security threats may occur, although no specific threats have been known to occur

If client computers are not connected to the Internet, then they are not susceptible to online threats. When they are connected to the Internet at any time, they become vulnerable. You do not have to enable or disable ThreatCon Response when client computers go online or offline.

The Symantec Web site includes more information about ThreatCon.

http://www.symantec.com

Backup Time

If you selected Independent recovery point as the backup type, your scheduling options include the following:

• No Schedule

  This option saves all of the backup job settings except a schedule. You can later run the backup job at your convenience using Run Backups or assign a schedule by editing the backup job.

• Weekly

  (Default) This option creates a new, independent recovery point on each day of the week that you check, and at the specified time. When you create independent recovery points one or more times per week, it can require large amounts of disk storage space.

• Monthly

  This option creates a new, independent recovery point on each day of the month that you check, and at the specified time.

• Only run once

  This option creates a single, independent recovery point once. The job does not run again unless you change the date and the time settings by selecting a new date and time in the future.

  Running an existing backup job immediately

• Distribute strategy evenly across (minutes)

  See the description in the first row (Backup Time) of this table.