Autodesk Vault 2013 - Backup Time / Performance

by Chris Turner

While working at different customers, obviously the Vault databases and filestores grow and grow. It is quite usual these days to see some customers with Vault sizes in excess of 50GB and even much more.

With the above being true, timing of the Vault backup is critical. You need to check and make sure that the Vault Backup Script has executed and completely properly before this itself gets backed up onto tape, or any other mechanism that the company applied.

With databases/filestores getting larger and larger, of course this means the backup is taking longer and longer. Just recently I noted one customer’s backup was taking over 10hours!

All is not lost! You can speed this up quite easily by elevating the PRIORITY of the task on the server. The process is quite simple….

In a nutshell, in Windows 2008 Server, Microsoft changed the behaviour of the Windows Task Scheduler and at which default priority level the tasks run at. These generally can be: -

• Below Normal = values of 7 or 8
• Normal = values of 4, 5 or 6
• Above Normal = values of 2 or 3
• High Priority etc etc

The default for Windows 2008 Server is “Below Normal”. Whereas in Windows 2003 Server, a scheduled task is created with a priority level of "Normal".

To improve the time which a Vault backup is performed using the Windows Task Scheduler, change the priority level to "Normal" or higher. According to Autodesk, a  "Normal" setting is the recommended priority.

Use the following steps to change the priority level.

Go to Task Scheduler > Select the Vault Backup Task > Click on Export

Save the file as *.xml and then open it in Notepad.

Find the line <Priority>7</Priority> and change the value of the Priority from 7 to 4 or 5.

Save the XML file.

Back in the task Scheduler , delete the current scheduled task for the Vault backup. In the Actions Menu go to "Import Task" and choose your XML File that you have edited and saved.

Your Vault Backup task should now be running with a higher priority and should be quicker.

NOTE: Be sure to test this and verify afterwards that your backup is running correctly and as expected.