Backup Job and Backup Copy Job scheduling and setup

[Celio]

Hello,

I would like to schedule our Backup Job and Backup Copy Job of our Hyper-V VMs as follows:
Backup Job:

- Incremental from Monday to Friday at 22:00
- Synthetic full every Saturday at 22:00

For this Backup Job I want no more than 28 backup files (restore points?) for space saving purposes, the backup destination is local to the Hyper-V host, on which Veeam B&R is installed.

Backup Copy Job:
- Duplicate the synthetic full every Saturday night after this synthetic full is done to a rotated external hard drive.
- Duplicate one synthetic full every end/beginning of month in order to archive one Monthly Backup.

How can we go about settings this up?

The challenge:
- No use of scripting, only the builtin GUI functions
- The external hard drive is rotated, and there is one different HD per week, and a different HD for the monthly (for added security) which are plugged in only on Friday, and removed on Monday, therefore the HD are not permanently plugged in

Additional notes:
- I took screenshots of my attempt of settings this up but dunno how to insert them here.
- Somehow the Backup Copy job to the external hard drive repository want my hard drive to always be connected as I sometimes receive the e-mail alert saying: "Cannot connect to target backup repository."

Thank you for all your contributions to this question.

[PTide]

Hi,

Backup Copy Job:
- Duplicate the synthetic full every Saturday night after this synthetic full is done to a rotated external hard drive.
- Duplicate one synthetic full every end/beginning of month in order to archive one Monthly Backup.

You could try the following - setup you backup job in the desired manner, setup backup copy job to keep just two restore points (Full + incremental) with "Keep the following restore points for archival purposes" option enabled (pick 1 weekly and 1 montlhy. Also you'll need to specify "rotated media" setting in you repo's configuration.

The external hard drive is rotated, and there is one different HD per week

When do weekly and montly rotations occur?

Thank you.

You can setup

[Celio]

Hi,
You could try the following - setup you backup job in the desired manner, setup backup copy job to keep just two restore points (Full + incremental) with "Keep the following restore points for archival purposes" option enabled (pick 1 weekly and 1 montlhy. Also you'll need to specify "rotated media" setting in you repo's configuration.

Please tell me, does each restore point correspond to a backup file (.vbk)?

We need at least 4 weekly restore points, 20 daily restore points and 12 monthly restore points.

How will the Backup Copy Job handle this? Please explain...

The external hard drive is rotated, and there is one different HD per week. When do weekly and montly rotations occur?

Every week has a 1 TB external disk drive, for exemple:

Week 1 DD
Week 2 DD...

And a another disk drive for all monthly backup archives.

So, every Friday we connect the corresponding week's DD to the Veeam B&R server and every following Monday we remove it.

Then, the last weekend of the month we connect the monthly DD for the monthly backup copy.

Thank you.

[PTide]

Please tell me, does each restore point correspond to a backup file (.vbk)?

In case of backup copy job with "keep the following restore points..." option enabled - yes, backup copy job keeps full restore points, that's called GFS, please see the article.

We need at least 4 weekly restore points, 20 daily restore points and 12 monthly restore points.

Then you can setup your backup job to keep 20 restore points and perform synthetic on weekends. In your backup copy job you setup 4 weeklies + and 12 monthlies. In case the dates of monthly and weekly backups are the same then there will be a single .vbk. For example Saturday, October 31st is the last day of the month. Assume you've scheduled weekly full on Saturday and montlhy full on the last day of each month - you'll end up with a single .vbk which holds the roles of both weekly and monthly backup.

So, every Friday we connect the corresponding week's DD to the Veeam B&R server and every following Monday we remove it.

Then schedule your backup copy job to run on Sunday mornings only and create a usb repo with rotated drives option. With that option enabled each Sunday your backup copy job will create a new Full backup on your usb drive repository. The same applies to your monthly-swapped drive.

Thank you.

[Celio]

Please tell me, does each restore point correspond to a backup file (.vbk)?In case of backup copy job with "keep the following restore points..." option enabled - yes, backup copy job keeps full restore points, that's called GFS, please see the article.

It's still not clear to me. Please note that I'm new to Veeam Backup solutions. From my experience with other backup solutions, 1 backup file = 1 restore point. So, if we do an incremental backup from Monday to Friday and a full backup on Saturday this means we have 5 small backup files (Monday-Friday) and 1 big backup file (Saturday). Is this the case with Veeam B&R?

We need at least 4 weekly restore points, 20 daily restore points and 12 monthly restore points.Then you can setup your backup job to keep 20 restore points and perform synthetic on weekends. In your backup copy job you setup 4 weeklies + and 12 monthlies. In case the dates of monthly and weekly backups are the same then there will be a single .vbk. For example Saturday, October 31st is the last day of the month. Assume you've scheduled weekly full on Saturday and montlhy full on the last day of each month - you'll end up with a single .vbk which holds the roles of both weekly and monthly backup.

I think this is clear enough. But we would like the monthly to go to a different external disk, is that possible?

So, every Friday we connect the corresponding week's DD to the Veeam B&R server and every following Monday we remove it.Then schedule your backup copy job to run on Sunday mornings only and create a usb repo with rotated drives option. With that option enabled each Sunday your backup copy job will create a new Full backup on your usb drive repository. The same applies to your monthly-swapped drive.

How do I schedule my backup copy job to run on sunday morning? There's no date/time schedule for the backup copy jobs, only for the normal backup jobs.

How does the rotated drives option work? Last time I connected a different external DD, I got an error message saying "Cannot connect to target backup repository."

Thank you.

[PTide]

Is this the case with Veeam B&R?

Yes.

I think this is clear enough. But we would like the monthly to go to a different external disk, is that possible?

Sure. You can set up an additional backup copy job, so your 1st copy job will place weeklies on one drive and your other copy job will place monthlies to another drive.

How do I schedule my backup copy job to run on sunday morning? There's no date/time schedule for the backup copy jobs, only for the normal backup jobs.

Set "Copy every" interval to 7 days and specify start time. In "Schedule" tab pick the "During the following time periods only" option and specify a time frame when your job is allowed to run.

How does the rotated drives option work? Last time I connected a different external DD, I got an error message saying "Cannot connect to target backup repository."

When a new job session starts, Veeam server checks if full backup and all incremental backups that have been produced by the job are present. If external drives have been swapped, and the full backup or any incremental backups are missing from the currently attached drive, Veeam starts the backup chain anew. It creates a new full backup file on the drive, and this full backup is used as a starting point for subsequent incremental backups. Rotated drives should be configured in a repository options. Please check if you have that option enabled in the "advanced" section of your repository settings.

[Celio]

Please check if you have that option enabled in the "advanced" section of your repository settings.

Yes, it is enabled.

Does the drive letter has to be the same? What about the directory path?

[PTide]

Not necessarily. Veeam keeps track of external drives attached to a Microsoft Windows server and is able to detect these drives even if the drive letter changes. If the backup destination folder is missing Veeam will create it.

"Cannot connect to target backup repository."

When does that message occur, during backup copy job session?

Thank you.