This page describes how DPOD prepares the execution flow of a backup plan (using tasks) and subsequently - how the tasks themselves are executed.

Task Creation Flow

General execution flow for a backup plan:

1. Verify that the system allows Backups to run. (See Configurable Parameters and Settings to learn how to enable or disable all backup activities)
2. Verify that the current system time is within the maintenance window timeframe defined for the plan
3. Verify that the backup store destination path is a mounted, remote, filesystem. (See Configurable Parameters and Settings to learn how to set the destination path)
4. Verify that there is enough space in the destination path for downloading and storing the backup. (See Configurable Parameters and Settings to learn how to determine this check's threshold value)
5. Iterate over all the activities defined for the plan, and split them into executable tasks.
   For example: consider a plan with two activities, one to Secure Backup devices QA* and a second to export domain DOMAIN* on device TEST8 and on an unavailable device - TEST9.
   DPOD will create six tasks:
   a. Secure Backup task for device QA1
   b. Secure Backup task for device QA2
   c. Secure Backup task for device QA3
   d. Export Domain task for Device TEST8 and Domain DOMAIN1
   e. Export Domain task for Device TEST8 and Domain DOMAIN2
   f.  Export Domain task for Device TEST9 and domain DOMAIN*. Note: this task will be created with a "Skipped" status since the device TEST9 is unavailable.
6. If all the created tasks are in "Skipped" state (because the devices are not available, or because no devices or domains matched the input patterns) - the plan will stop
7. If there are any tasks waiting to be executed - the Pre-Plan Script will be executed (if requested in the plan settings)
   
   .the plan will stop if the script's return code is larger than 0

Task Execution Flow

After the backup tasks are created, they will start to execute. The following is the general execution flow for a backup task:

1. Verify that the current system time is within the maintenance window timeframe defined for the plan.
2. Verify that there is enough space in the destination path for downloading and storing the files. (See Configurable Parameters and Settings to lean how to determine the check threshold value)
3. If the backup is for a specific domain and quiesce was requested - check that the domain is not already quiesced
   If the backup is for an entire device and quiesce was requested - check that there are no quiesced domains on the device
4. If Export Domain was requested - check that there are no unsaved changes in the requested domain(s),
   If there are any unsaved changes, two export domain backups will be taken - one for the persisted data and one for the unpersisted data.
5. If Secure Backup was requested - check that there is enough space in the DataPower appliance to store the backup before downloading it to the user storage. (See Configurable Parameters and Settings to learn how to determine this check's threshold value)
6.  Run the user's pre-script (if requested in the activity), the task will stop if the script return value is larger than 0
7.  Issue a Quiesce domain/device SOMA (if requested for the activity) 
8. Wait for the device or domain to finish quiescing. A timeout value may be specified for the Quiesce SOMA (see Configurable Parameters and Settings),
   DPOD will cancel the task if the domain(s) are not yet quiesced 3 minutes after the specified timeout, and will issue an Unquiesce SOMA
9. Perform the Secure Backup or Export Domain operation
10. Unquiesce the device/domain (if it was previously quiesced by this task) 
11. Wait for the device/domain to unquiesce. A timeout value may be specified for this operation. 3 minutes after the timeout, DPOD will stop waiting for the unquiesce operation and will fail the task (the device's unquiesce operation will not be interrupted though)
12. Run the user's post-task script (if requested in the activity) 

When all the plan's tasks completed execution, the post-plan script will be executed (if requested in the plan settings)

Output Files

The backups will be downloaded and stored in the destination filesystem that was set by the user (see Configurable Parameters and Settings)

For secure backup, the destination path will be:
<user defined path> + /Device-Name/secure-backup/timestamp    
E.g. /data/backup/store/QA-device1/secure-backup/2017-06-26-22-48-00-000

For export domain (specific domain), the destination path will be:
<user defined path> + /Device-Name/domain/domain-name/domain-export-timestamp-isPersisted
E.g. /data/backup/store/QA-device1/domain/Domain1/Domain1-export-2017-06-26-22-48-00-000-persisted.zip

For export domain (all domains), the destination path will be:
<user defined path> + /Device-Name/domain/all-domains/all-domains-export-timestamp-isPersisted
E.g. /data/backup/store/QA-device1/all-domains/all-domains-export-2017-06-26-22-48-00-000-nonpersisted.zip

Backup Execution Results

The Plan Details page shows the 40 most recent plan execution results, 

The table outlines the following details for each plan execution

*Click the red "Abort Pending Executions" to stop execution in status "WAITING_FOR_PRE_VALIDATION" that did not started yet.
**Click the status column to drill into the activities execution details page.

Click the status column to drill into the task execution details page

Click the status column to drill into the downloaded files details page

The downloaded files page displays information about the backup operation, such as the device firmware version, device type, device build, etc; and a list of all files that were downloaded to the user's storage