Spreading backups across the night

By default every device of a customer starts its backup at the schedule's time, 22:00 unless you changed it, and they all share the office's internet line at once. On a slow line that means every backup crawls, some run into the working day, and the line is full while they do.

Spread backups automatically fixes that per customer. Tenvara works out each night's plan itself: the devices at each site start one after another through a window, the biggest and slowest first, so the site's upload stays under a budget you set or Tenvara learns. The plan follows new devices, removed devices and backups that grow, with nobody setting start times by hand.

Turning it on for a customer#

Open the customer, then the Backup tab, and find Spread backups automatically.

While it is off, the card says so: "every device starts at its schedule's time (22:00), all at once". Turn the switch on and set:

1. The window: when backups may start. Leave the start empty to use the customer's schedule time; the end is 06:00 by default.
2. The upload budget every site starts from, in Mbit/s. Choose Learn it to let Tenvara measure what each site's line really sustains, or no limit to only spread the starts through the window.
3. Let Tenvara decide: whether devices that have their own start time may be moved too. Off, they keep their time and count against the budget.

Switching it off again is one click. Devices with their own schedule are never deleted, so switching back keeps them.

Sites and their budgets#

Tenvara groups a customer's devices into sites by where they back up from: devices behind the same internet address are one site, named after the customer's site when most of them belong to it. A laptop that roams belongs to the address it backed up from on most recent nights.

Under the switch, each site the plan has seen is listed with its protected devices and its budget in words: "20 Mbit/s", "16 Mbit/s, learned from 12 backups" or "Learning (10 Mbit/s until then)". Use the pencil on a site to give it its own budget or to leave it out of spreading. A learned budget comes from what the site's backups really uploaded over the last two weeks, once three backups have been measured.

For new customers#

Settings > Backup, the Defaults tab, has Spread backups automatically with the same window, budget and Let Tenvara decide. A new customer takes it the first time it backs up; customers that already have their own choice keep it.

Tonight's plan#

With spreading on, the customer's Backup tab shows tonight's plan for each site:

• A chart of the expected upload through the night, stacked device by device, with the budget as a dashed line over it.
• One row per device, from its planned start to its expected finish. A start set by hand is outlined, and a finish after the end of the window is amber. Hover a row for why it starts when it does.
• List shows the same as a table: start, expected finish, upload, expected size and why. Plan again works the plan out afresh now.

The plan is made from each device's last ten backups. A device with no history is planned for its whole protected size at a careful rate, since it is a first backup. Devices that are often off at night get the start of the window. The plan is made again by itself when a setting changes, a device is protected or removed, a backup changes its estimate a lot, and an hour before the window opens.

On the night#

Tenvara holds each site to its budget whatever happens, not just on paper. Before a backup starts, it checks what the site's running backups really upload; if the next one would take the site over budget, it waits its turn. Running backups share the budget evenly, and each one's share is raised as others finish.

A backup that is waiting says so in Backup > Jobs and on the device: "Waiting for bandwidth at Head office, 3 ahead", with what is using the budget ("2 backups here use 18 of 20 Mbit/s"). It holds no place in the backup server's own queue, so other sites carry on.

• Back up now goes to the front of the site's line, and still counts against the budget.
• A device that is off holds no place and starts when it is back.
• Nothing is missed at the end of the window: a backup still waiting keeps its place and runs at its next chance, under the budget, and its log says why it did not start before the window ended ("Did not start before 06:00: waiting for bandwidth at Head office").

Note: Spreading works per site. Devices that back up every few hours keep their schedule, and a device whose schedule skips tonight's weekday is not in tonight's plan.

Your own uplink#

Some uploads go over your own server's internet connection rather than the customer's: second copies to offsite storage, and Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backups kept on offsite storage. Hold those to a window and a budget in Settings > Backup, the Protection tab, under Your organisation's own uplink.

Turn it on and set the window (20:00 to 06:00 by default, on the install's clock) and an upload budget in Mbit/s, or no budget to use the window only. Then:

• Scheduled copies and tenant backups whose storage is offsite start only inside the window. Outside it they wait and say when they will start ("Waiting for the uplink window: starts at 20:00").
• Everything they upload shares the budget, at any time of day.
• A tenant held by the window is not counted overdue for the hours it is shut.
• A backup or copy you start by hand never waits for the window.

While it is on, the card shows whether the window is open ("Open until 06:00"), how much of the budget is in use, what is uploading and what waits. Storage counts as offsite when it is S3 storage outside your own network; folder locations and S3 storage on a private address are not counted.

Related#

• Schedules and retention
• Protecting devices
• Jobs
• Second copies and the copy list