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Which timezone is used for VSA backups?

  • 13 May 2021
  • 5 replies
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M
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I’m running 11.22.19 and have our CS and MA in UK on local time zone (GMT/BST) and a VSA proxy VM in New York on its local time zone (EST). Our backup plan’s schedules have “client time zone” set. However, the New York VM backups are starting at the same time as the UK, not what I’m expecting. The VSA proxy also has a file system backup configured and that runs at the expected local time.

Which part of the chain is dictating the time zone for the proxy client?

There is, on the properties sheet, an override time zone option which shows “time zone: not available”. I will try setting this to the New York time zone, however the time zone should really be picked up from the VSA proxy and this setting used to override that if required.

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Best answer by Edd Rimmer 13 May 2021, 14:40

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Edd Rimmer
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Hey Mike,

Thanks for your post. I’m not aware of any instances of customers wanting the VSA proxies to determine when jobs should start - VSA proxies are just that (Used to facilitate the backup jobs, not determine scheduling - they are not the clients being backed up and so ‘Client time zone’ will not have an effect).

Can you confirm which properties sheet you are going to override on? There are multiple locations where this can be set (Client, subclient, schedule).

Thanks
Edd

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M
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Thanks Edd, my view is that the pseudo client is the the client and its time zone should dictate schedule times. But this doesn’t get set unless overridden manually. Personally, I’d take the first proxy’s time zone and feed that in when creating the pseudo client. At least then it would be visible and more obvious if an override was required. Also, I normally would have proxies in the same time zone as they are likely to be local to the physical hypervisors (normally a VM on them).

The time information is displayed on the general tab for the properties of the pseudo client, which is where I have set the time zone.

Client:properties​​​​​

Prior to the change it showed

Regards,

Mike

Edd Rimmer
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Hi Mike,

It’s certainly an interesting thought.

Yes, pseudo clients do not have a time zone initially - so it’s up to the administrator to configure this if it’s to be used for ‘client’ time scheduling. Another option could be to set it on the subclient.

You’ve changed it at the correct level and I’ve also confirmed in my lab that this has the desired effect.

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Thanks for confirming, one alternative option would be for the pseudo client creation wizard to ask which time zone to use (could even list those discovered from proxies, CS, etc. or a manually set one).

Damian Andre
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I actually think having an option to base it on proxy time makes total sense, as you (almost) always co-locate your proxy with the VMs you wish to protect. A lot of folks I know have a centralized vCenter server that spans multiple timezones and geographical locations, so you can’t always rely on the pseudoclient. However, since automatic proxy allocation is done at the time of the backup, that makes it a bit tricky. The idea should be that you throw all your proxies into a bucket and commvault will work out/pick the right one. Perhaps it could require at least one discovery to identify the right proxy and base timezone off that. Needs more thought, but I can pass the idea along … 

 

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