Dell NetWorker 19.9 Administration Guide

Target sessions

Use the Target sessions attribute on the Configuration tab of the Device resource to define the optimal number of backup sessions to assign to an active device.

Target sessions is not a hard limit; to set a hard limit for the number of sessions that a particular device can accept, use the Max sessions attribute.

The Target sessions attribute aids in load balancing devices by determining when the NetWorker software should write save streams to a device.

When a save session starts, the following actions occur:

• If a device is already receiving the number of backup sessions determined by the target sessions value, the NetWorker server uses the next underutilized device for the backups.
• If all available devices are receiving the number of backup sessions determined by their target sessions value, the NetWorker server overrides the set value and uses the device with the least activity for the next backup session.

Because it is often more efficient for the NetWorker server to multiplex multiple save sets to the same device, rather than write each save set to a separate device, the NetWorker server attempts to assign to each device a number of save sets, up to the value of target sessions, before assigning a save set to another device.