Schedules

Scheduled Scanning allow you to process new or existing files based on a schedule, and include a Classify Now option for immediate classification.

Overview

Instead of processing new files as they come in, your workflow may allow them to be scanned once per day (or at some other preferred time interval). For compliance reasons you may be required to scan all of your files on a quarterly basis and Scheduled Scanning will allow you to do that. Whether it is compliance or infrastructure efficiencies and cost optimizations, scheduled scanning provides you the flexibility to determine how you scan your data.

Creating a Schedule

Creating a schedule is a simple process. It is made up of two steps: picking the resources you want included and defining the scan frequency.

  1. Click the Create Schedule button.

  2. Select the resources to include in this schedule.

  3. Define the Scan Frequency by filling in the details.

  4. Click the Save button.

The process for creating a classification schedule is similar. If you are Classifying files, you'll aslo need to define Matching Rules. This is the heart of Classification, defining patterns you are searching for. You can choose all patterns that the system has with Select Visible, or for a certain region with Regions, or you can select specific matching patterns individually with check boxes.

A schedule is not activated when you save it (as you can see in the pic above). You have to take the second step from the row actions menu to activate the schedule. You may be prompted to take additional steps for region setup. If you are protecting resources with a schedule in a region that has never been configured before, you will need to provide networking setup information as part of the schedule activation.

FieldsDescription

Schedule Name

Name to identify this particular schedule (must be unique)

Scan Period

Choose what the scan frequency should be from: Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly

Schedule Description

Provide a useful description of what this schedule is doing (optional)

Files to Scan/Classify

This allows you to specify whether this schedule should scan all objects within the resources or only the new objects since the last scheduled scan. When first creating or re-activating a schedule, the last scanned value is set to current UTC time. Possible Values:

  • All Files - will scan all objects in the resource(s) every time the schedule is kicked off

  • New Files Since Schedule Creation - Going forward from creation and then from the last schedule execution, this schedule will scan only new objects found in the resource(s)

  • Scan/Classify All Files on First or Next Run - this is an add-on to the New Files option. This allows you to baseline the resource(s) by scanning all objects within the resource(s) the very first time the schedule is created. Note: you can click this again at any time the schedule is active and the very next execution of the schedule will scan all objects again.

Times to Scan

Each scan period will allow you to specify options for when to scan within that period. Possible Values:

  • Hourly - You can select Every Hour or Every Half Hour Note: If the resources included in this schedule are quite large (>~8 million objects) you may not get find all the new objects in the half hour option

  • Daily - You can select every hour of the day or some subset of the day (at noon and midnight for example) Note: all times are UTC

  • Weekly - You can select all days of the week or any subset. For example, every Friday night the schedule would run. Or every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

  • Monthly - You can select any one day of the month. For the last day of the month, select the Last Day of Month option

  • Yearly - You can select all months of the year or any subset. For example, if you wanted to perform quarterly scans you could select Last Day of Month for March, June, September and December

Managing Schedules

Once the schedule is created you will need to manage it. There are 5 main things you can perform on your schedules:

  1. Activate

  2. Deactivate

  3. Modify

  4. Delete

  5. Scan/Classify now

Activating and Deactivating

As noted above, schedules are not created in an active state. You must activate the schedule using the action menu to the far right side of the schedule row. Simply click the button and select Activate as seen below.

To deactivate the schedule you click the action menu and select Deactivate. The deactivate menu option will only appear when the current state of the schedule is active.

Once a schedule is activated, it will execute at the Next Scheduled Scan time. While a schedule is inactive, it won't scan at all. If you reactivate a schedule that has previously run, its last scan time will be set to current UTC time and move forward as if it were a new schedule. The schedule will not go back to the previously active time.

If a schedule is missed because the console is offline (upgrades, reboots, etc), the schedule will make up for the lost time and scan since the set last scanned time.

You must deactivate a schedule before you can delete it.

Editing

You may need to modify an existing schedule in some way: add or take away resources, modify the scan period, etc. Editing can be triggered by clicking the Edit button from the action menu.

Deleting

Whether you want to get rid of test schedules or a schedule that is no longer needed, you can easily delete a schedule from the action menu.

The schedule must be inactive before it can be deleted. The delete menu option will not appear until the schedule is in an inactive state.

Scan Now and Classify Now

If you need to run a schedule immediately or on-demand you can do so with the Scan Now option for AV and Classify Now option for DC in the action menu. If your schedule is an All Files schedule then for the selected resources all objects will be scanned. If the schedule is a New Files schedule then new objects from the last scan date will be scanned.

Searching

The provided search field will search anything in the Schedule Name, Schedule Description and Scan Frequency columns. On top of that, you can also search by volume names and any schedules that match the full or partial volume name will be displayed.

Pricing

For Antivirus scanning, per gigabyte pricing varies based on whether the objects are new objects or existing objects. The same applies to scheduled scanning. If the schedule is going back over existing objects, you will get the retro scanning price. If the schedule covers new objects coming into the resource(s), then you will be charged the go forward data price.

For Data Classification, you'll be charged per gigabyte pricing, only for the first time you classify a file. Repeat classifications of a file, even with new matching rules, are not charged.

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