A data protection scheduling system provides a flexible or rolling data protection window that analyzes various criteria to determine an optimal or near optimal time for performing data protection or secondary copy operations. While prior systems may have scheduled backups at an exact time (e.g., 2:00 a.m.), the system described herein dynamically determines when to perform the backups and other data protection storage operations, such as based on network load, CPU load, expected duration of the storage operation, rate of change of user activities, frequency of use of affected computer systems, trends, and so on.