Scheduler & data retention

Scheduler lets you automatize your backup plan performance. The scheduler is the last step when configuring a custom backup plan.

Scheduler

Set the type of schedule from the drop-down list

You can choose three different schedule types:

• Basic - the simplest type of schedule, this type of schedule lets you to perform full (once per month) and incremental copies.

• Custom (FIFO - first in, first out) - this type of schedule lets you choose how often your copies should perform. If a basic type of schedule is chosen you can perform two types of copy: full and incremental.

• GFS (grandfather-father-son) - this type of schedule doesn't let you set how often copies should perform (in this case full copies perform once per month, differential copies once per week, and incremental copies every day), but lets you use differential copies as well.

If you decided to protect your data using the Basic type of schedule, set the time, when you want to start your backup tasks. If you want to configure Custom or GFS types, set schedule options regarded to a full copy.

You can set the day of the month when the full copy should perform, and the hour when the copy should start.

You can also set the day of the week when the full copy should perform, for example, the second Saturday of the month.

Set schedule options for differential (available only for GFS schedule type) and incremental copy

Due to incremental and differential copy, you can set the day of the week when your copies should perform, and also the hour when performing should start.

Set optional backup window in Other settings.

Data retention

Retention is the tool, which allows configuring how long GitProtect will store your backup on the storage.

The last part of the schedule section is to define the data retention policy. You can set one of three rules to decide for how long you want to store your data. To configure it, hit the "Edit" button.

Set a rule from the drop-down list in retention options

• Keep infinitely - versions won't be removed - GitProtect will store all the versions

• By time - choose different retention periods for each kind of copy - for all types of copy (full, differential (only for GFS), and incremental) you can set different periods of time.

Let's focus on the Basic type of schedule. For example, if you want to store your full copy for 1 month and incremental copy for 2 days, GitProtect won't delete your incremental copy after two days, because to restore the whole backup chain, GitProtect needs 1 full and 29/30 incremental copies (depends on the number of days in a month; in case of performing backup task once per day every day).

All the copy versions (full, incremental, differential) will be stored according to the retention configuration.

In general, retention by time is recommended to use by Xopero Company.

• By number of copies - total number of versions to store

Same as the time retention schema, if you want to store your data by the number of copies, GitProtect will not delete the backup version, if the backup chain will be unavailable to restore after the version deletion.

In the case of storing the data by the number of copies, if you configured the backup performing, to perform 1 full copy per month and 1 incremental copy per week and you configure retention options to store 2 versions, the last incremental copies will be removed.

Configure when to start the cleanup (unavailable while keeping data infinitely)

Here you can decide when to enforce the retention policy:

• After the backup - cleanup will only run when a new version is ready and saved in the storage

• Before the backup - outdated versions will be removed when a new backup starts