Dell NetWorker 19.9 Administration Guide

Client priority

The Priority attribute on the Globals (1 of 2) tab of the Client Properties dialog box for a Client resource enables you to control the order in which the NetWorker server contacts clients for backup.

The attribute can contain a value between 1 and 1,000. The lower the value, the higher the priority.

You must select View > Diagnostic Mode in the Administration interface to access the Priority attribute in the Client Properties dialog box.

During a backup operation, the NetWorker server contacts the client with the lowest priority value first. If you do not specify a priority for the Client resources, then the backup order is random.

While the Priority attribute specifies the order of client contact, many variables affect the order in which clients complete their backups. For example:

• The backup operation on a client does not begin until the worklists for each of the save sets on the client are complete.
• The amount of work can vary greatly from one client to the next.
• If a client stops responding and times out, then the backup operation puts the client backup at the end of the backup order list.

The only way to guarantee that the backup of one client occurs before the backup of another client is to configure the data protection policies for the clients to start at different times.