Activity Priority Overview
Since a backup set can only be processed by one activity at a time, each activity on the DS-System has a priority level which resolves conflicts when more than one activity tries to process the same backup set. This determines the order in which activities can access and lock a backup set for processing.
The default Activity Priorities are listed in the following table. You can use the Activity Priority Schedule to adjust the level of any of these activities to a value in the corresponding Valid Range.
- * The"lock_type" number refers to the ID that is displayed in the System Status - Backup Set Locks Tab (DS-Operator > Setup menu > System Activities: System).
To change activity priority, you use an Activity Priority Schedule. Each Activity Priority Schedule contains a list of Schedule Details, which are the day(s) and time window(s) when the activities have specific priority.
Initially, there is one <DEFAULT> Activity Priority Schedule and all DS-Clients are assigned to it. (New DS-Clients are automatically assigned to the <DEFAULT> schedule.)
The <DEFAULT> Activity Priority Schedule has two Schedule Details:
- The first Detail covers the entire week (7-days / 24-hours) and contains a list of all the activities, which are initially set to the "factory default settings". This list is provided for your convenience to see the default activity priority values and any changes you make to them. If you delete this Detail (or any activities in the Activity Priority list), any new Details created will still work 'against' the factory default priority settings.
- The second Detail covers regular business hours (Monday-Friday / 8AM-6PM) and contains (initially) one activity: CDP. Its priority is increased (with respect to its default setting) from "12" to "2". The effect is that during business hours, CDP backup sets that are protecting high value data changes will not be interrupted by activities like System Admin, Autonomic Healing, Replication, etc.
- TIP 1: These default settings work well, and you should only consider altering them for very specific situations or requirements.
- TIP 2: To change the activity priorities for all DS-Clients at the same time, you can adjust the <DEFAULT> schedule.
For DS-Clients with special requirements, you can create a special "Activity Priority Schedule" and assign those DS-Clients to it.
- Each new Schedule you create contains the same Schedule Details as the <DEFAULT> schedule.
- You can alter, delete, or add to these Details as required.
- Once the Schedule is ready, you can assign the DS-Client(s) you want to it. This allows you to provide very specific activity priorities to individual DS-Clients, if required.
The following considerations should be made when assigning priority levels:
- Activity Priority is the internal DS-System level assigned to different activities that can run on the DS-System. (Activities occur at the backup set level.)
- When a higher priority activity locks a backup set, it prevents any lower priority activities from accessing it until that activity has finished. Similarly, a lower priority activity that is processing a backup set will be interrupted at a higher priority activity's request.
- Activities that are at the same priority level cannot interrupt one another, therefore the first activity to lock a backup set will maintain the lock until it has finished.
- Lower priority activities must always wait for higher priority activities to finish with a backup set. Similarly, they can be interrupted if a higher priority activity requests access to a backup set they are working on.
- Example: The most common priority request is for CDP Backups to increase from its default level of "12" during the working day (8AM-6PM) in order for protected backups to not be interrupted by System Admin, Autonomic Healing, Replication, etc. This is addressed by the second detail in the <DEFAULT> schedule.
How the Schedule Details are applied:
- Only one detail can apply at any specific time.
- For each activity that is about to start, the DS-System checks which Activity Priority should apply at that day and time.
- If any details overlap (start at the same time on the same day), DS-System will select the one that ends sooner (closer to the current time on DS-System). If two details start and end at the same time on the same day, the latest (bottom / lowest) one in the Schedule Detail list will apply.
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