Patent ID: 8091087

Claim:
A method to schedule a new backup job within a backup application executing on a computing device to optimize a utilization of a media resource of said backup application, said backup application including one or more previously scheduled backup jobs, comprising: calculating, by the backup application executing on the computing device, a current load of the media resource as a function of the previously scheduled backup jobs to be executed for the media resource, said calculating being a function of one or more parameters associated with the previously scheduled backup jobs, said parameters including an amount of data churn associated with the new backup job; predicting, by the backup application executing on the computing device, a load value for the new backup job as a function of job parameters associated with the new backup job, said load value predicting the load that the new backup job will place on the media resource; scheduling, by the backup application executing on the computing device, the new backup job to begin at a start time as a function of the calculated current load of the media resource and the predicted load value for the new backup job such that the resulting load on the media resource will yield an optimal minimum peak percentage utilization of the media resource, wherein the new backup job start time comprises a start time range, wherein scheduling the new backup job includes varying the start time of the new backup job within the start time range.