Using scheduler

The Scheduler tab allows you to schedule a maintenance time window for one or more hosts or host pools by taking it offline at the specified time for a specified period of time. It also allows you to schedule a reboot, startup, or shutdown of one or more hosts or entire host pools.

To configure a maintenance time window:

1. Click Tasks > Add > Disable host or Disable host pool. Both scenarios are configured similarly.
2. On the General tab, select the Enable Schedule option.
3. Specify a name for this schedule and an optional description.
4. Select a host or a host pool (depending on which action you selected) in the Available list and click Add. The host (or host pool) will appear in the Target list.
5. Select the Trigger tab and specify start date and time, duration, and recurrence settings for this event. To make this a one-time event, select Never in the Recur field.
6. Select the Options tab. Here you can configure a message that will be sent to users before the host goes offline. Click Tasks > Add and specify the message title, body, and the time period when it should be sent.
   • The On disable option on the Options tab allows you to specify what should happen to current sessions when a scheduled task triggers. Select a desired option from the drop-down list.
7. Click OK to save the schedule.

To configure a scheduled reboot:

1. Click Tasks > Add > Reboot host or Reboot host pool.
2. Specify the schedule properties the same way as described for the "Disable host" task above. The only difference is the Options tab, which contains the following additional options for the "reboot" tasks:
   • Enable Drain Mode and Force server reboot after: The two options work together. If you enable the drain mode, the following will happen. When the task triggers, new connections to a host are refused but active connections will continue to run. The server will be rebooted when all active users close their sessions or when Force server reboot after time is reached, whichever comes first. For active users not to lose their work, create a message that will advise them to save their work and log off.
   • Enforce schedule for currently inactive hosts: This option is enabled when the Enable Drain Mode option is selected. If selected, inactive hosts will be rebooted too.
     
3. Click OK to save the schedule.

To configure a scheduled startup:

1. Click Tasks > Add > Startup host or Startup host pool.
2. On the General tab, specify the schedule properties the same way as described for the "Disable host" task above. The only difference is the Type drop-down list for host pools that allows you to select the type of the host pools to be added.
3. On the Trigger tab, specify the schedule properties the same way as described for the "Disable host" task above.
4. On the Options tab, specify contains the following options:
   • Percentage of members: Select this option to specify the percentage of guest VMs that must be started up in each pool.
   • Specific number of members to be started: Select this option to specify the number of guest VMs that must be started up in each pool.

For a more detailed explanation of how to use the scheduler, please see RD Session Hosts > Using scheduler. The topic describes how to use scheduler with RD Sessions Hosts, but the functionality is the same.

To configure a scheduled shutdown:

1. Click Tasks > Add > Shutdown host or Shutdown host pool.
2. On the General tab, specify the schedule properties the same way as described for the "Disable host" task above.
3. On the Trigger tab, specify the schedule properties the same way as described for the "Disable host" task above.
4. On the Options tab, specify the schedule properties the same way as described for the "Reboot host" task above.