Best Practices Advice for Tape Rotation

[menthol]

SUPPORT CASE ID: 00507303

Hi all,

I'm impressed with Veeam and it's easy to use so far, but I am in need of some guidance on how to achieve the type of backup strategy we need to abide by. Our policy dictates that backups must be kept off site, transferred off the premises every day. We have tapes on a two-week rotation, i.e:

WEEK ONE: Monday 01 Tuesday 01 Wednesday 01 Thursday 01 Friday 01
WEEK TWO: Monday 02 Tuesday 02 Wednesday 02 Thursday 02 Friday 02
WEEK THREE: Monday 01 Tuesday 01 Wednesday 01 Thursday 01 Friday 01
... and so on.

We're backing up two ESXi hosts.

How can I achieve the following:

- VMs backed up first to disk then duplicated to tape.
- Backups written to tape in a manner that allow us to restore our environment from them in as a few tapes as possible.

Our tapes are too small to fit two full ESXi host backups, but we can purchase increased capacity ones if needed, I'd just appreciate information on what you consider best practice in this instance.

Thank you very much
Brad

[veremin]

Hi, Brad,

Assuming that I've understood your requirements correctly, the following list of settings should meet your expectations:

1) Media Pool -> Media Set -> Create new media set for every backup session.
2) Media Pool -> Retention -> Protect data for 2 weeks.
3) Backup to tape job -> Export current media set once the job finishes.

This way, the backup files will be written to the media on daily basis. Once the job is finished, the current medias will be exported, and you will be able to take them away. On 14th day, you will be able to move the medias back, and, once inserted, they will be overwritten in accordance with specified retention.

Thanks.

[menthol]

Thanks for that Eremin, I appreciate you spending your time to help me.

So the next question for me would be that we'd prefer to do full backups every day so we have a quick recovery solution in place rather than having to use incrementals from days previous, however the backups are too big to fit on our disks. However, compressed, the data should fit on fine but the wizard advises against hardware compression when the backups are already compressed on disk. Are there no exceptions to this?

Thanks again.

[veremin]

In order to have only full backups on tapes, you should either specify "source" backup job to create full backups every day or use reversed incremental backup mode.

Also, there should be enough space available on medias in order to host full backups.

As to compression, already compressed data is unlikely to be compressed any further. Moreover, this will increase the time of archiving process. However, you might want to experiment with both hardware and software compressions and see what works best.

Thanks.

[richardw]

Hi there,

Can you clarify a couple of issues for me, when the media set gets created this allows for the next backup to be a full backup, is this correct?

I only have one media pool and the media set gets created on Mondays and the retention is set to 'never overwrite data' which means the incremetals will append to the full backup, is this OK?

It's not easy to see what's on the tapes to confirm what's happening on a week to week basis but hopefully someone can clarify if I am heading in the right direction.

Thanks.

[veremin]

Can you clarify a couple of issues for me, when the media set gets created this allows for the next backup to be a full backup, is this correct?

The media set creation options aren't related to the "full/incremental" settings of the source backup job.

I only have one media pool and the media set gets created on Mondays and the retention is set to 'never overwrite data' which means the incremetals will append to the full backup, is this OK?

Can you provide more information on what you're trying to achieve? Then, we will be able to give you some advice.

Thanks.

[richardw]

Hi there,

Ignoring the disk backups, I am bascially wanting to run a full backup to tape once a week and then incremental changes for the rest of the week, I would like to keep this as simple as possible.

So, could this be done with one media pool?

Thanks.

[veremin]

You're using forward incremental mode, I assume. What type of retention does the source backup job have? How often full backup is being performed? Thanks.

[richardw]

Hi there,

Yes, forward inremental on disk. I have set 'never to overwrite data'. I thought I was doing a full backup once a week but I am not convinced, hence this post.

[veremin]

I was asking about retention and backup full settings of the source backup job, not media pool. But, it seems that you're creating full backup on weekly basis. Then, all you need to create is backup to tape job, specifying the said backup job as a source for it. Set the newly created backup to tape job to process both full and incremental files and to run right after the new backup file appears. This way, once new backup file is created, it will be immediately archived to tapes by the corresponding tape job.

As to media pool, everything can be done with the use of one media pool. So, there is no need to create an additional one.

I have set 'never to overwrite data'

Do you have a requirement to store the data on cassettes forever? I'm asking since with this option in place, the tape mediums will be never overwritten, and you will have to add new tapes in order to locate new backup files.

Thanks.

[richardw]

Hi there,

We do want to hold to tapes for a couple of months but if I wish to re-use tapes then they can be added into the 'free' media pool.

Is there a reason why I shouln=dn't be doing this?

[foggy]

You can set the retention to 2 months so that the tapes be re-used automatically, if required, once being inserted back after 2 months.

[richardw]

OK, thanks for the information.

[veremin]

Otherwise, the given cassette can be added to Free Media Pool manually, and it will be re-used by corresponding tape job. But automatic way seems to be preferable, indeed.

Thanks.

[digitlman]

I am transitioning from a Backup Exec environment to using Veeam for Exchange and file-server backups, and I'm having a little trouble shifting gears in my head as to how to do it.

In the BE way I did this:

Daily Full Exchange to disk - then spool that to a single daily tape.

With Veeam, I am doing an active full on Sat, then inc all other days of the week.

Now, I have a test Veeam Tape job set up that copies all the backup files from the "Exchange" B2D folder onto a single tape. I feel like I need to have a separate tape for each day of the week, but I guess not, right? I mean, the single tape, even though it appears to be overwritten daily, will still contain the full backup file, plus the daily incr files, which will give me the daily restore points, right?

EDIT: I ran the tape job again and it looks like it is actually just appending the last incr file to the tape. But still, it looks like I only need one tape instead of 5?

[foggy]

Correct, you do not need a separate tape for each day if incremental backups are appended to the same tape.