Creating Separate Policies for User Schedules

If you create separate policies for user backups or archives, the considerations are similar to those for automatic backups. One difference, however, is that no backup selection list is necessary because users select the objects before starting the operation.

The following table shows a set of clients in two user policies.

• All clients in policy User1 have common requirements for user backups and archives.
• The policy named User2 was created for pluto because the user on this client works from 12 pm to 8 pm (12:00 to 20:00) and therefore requires different backup times.

If NetBackup receives a request for a user backup or archive, it uses the first policy and schedule that it finds that has both of the following:

1. The client for which the user is requesting the operation.
2. A user schedule that:
   • Specifies the appropriate operation (backup or archive).
   • Allows the operation to start at the time that the user requests it. If the backup device is busy at the time of the request, NetBackup queues the request and honors it when the device becomes available (providing the backup window is still open).

For example, assume that at 14:00 (2 pm), a user on the client named mars begins a backup of files. NetBackup processes this request as follows:

1. Finds a policy that includes mars in its client list and has a user backup schedule that allows a backup to start at 14:00 (2 pm).
2. Performs the backup.

The following policy and schedule meets the criteria for the above request: