Set Up a Custom Backup Schedule

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Note

This information applies to both Backup V1 and Backup V2.

Alation runs automatic backups on a nightly basis. Use these steps to change the backup schedule if necessary.

Alation recommends switching to a schedule where the backup is created once or twice a week for large installations (> 1TB in data).

Also consider increasing the value of the parameter alation.backup.chef_timeout in alation_conf (set in seconds, the default is 21600 seconds (six hours)). This parameter defines the timeout for the backup process. For a large volume of data, the backup may require more time.

Application of a new backup schedule will require a restart of some Alation services.

You will need to provide the day, hour, and minute values separately.

Note

From version 2022.3, UTC is the default server time zone. Schedules that are set using alation_conf parameters are interpreted as UTC. In previous releases, the server default time zone was PDT/PST.

To set up a custom schedule:

  1. Enter the Alation shell.

    sudo /etc/init.d/alation shell

  2. Set the minutes. If you want to set a schedule that runs at zero minutes, skip this parameter.

    alation_conf alation.backup.scheduled_minute -s <value>

  3. Set the hour in the 24-hour format.

    alation_conf alation.backup.scheduled_hour -s <value>

  4. Set the day using the values mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun. You can use several values separated with a comma with no spaces.

    alation_conf alation.backup.scheduled_day -s <value1>,<value2>

  5. Restart Supervisor:

    sudo /etc/init.d/supervisord restart

Examples

Every Sunday at 9:30 AM UTC:

alation_conf alation.backup.scheduled_minute -s 30
alation_conf alation.backup.scheduled_hour -s 9
alation_conf alation.backup.scheduled_day -s sun

Tuesday and Saturday at 9:00 AM UTC:

alation_conf alation.backup.scheduled_hour -s 9
alation.backup.scheduled_day -s tue,sat