VEEAM Backup and Backup Exec

[pmalinov]

We are currently taking incremental backups with VEEAM and have a 14 day restore point, but we would like to setup separate backup jobs for Full Monthly backups with VEEAM, and as soon as they are finished to automatically bring up Backup Exec to write those files to tape. Once the files are written to tapes they should be deleted from disk.

3 Questions:
- Do I need to have a separate backup job set in VEEAM for the monthly full if I want those files deleted after Backup Exec writes them to tape?
- What would the rollback points look like for monthly backup?
- Can someone that knows how to script and has one created, please post it here? For post command and the backup exec.

Thank you!

[Gostev]

Peter,

1. No, you do not need separate job. You can just pickup VBK from the current job - this file always represents full backup of the latest state due to Veeam synthetic backup mode.
2. No different from daily jobs. Job period does not matter.
3. We have integration guide that you can obtain from our support, it has the actual script.

Thanks!
Anton

[pmalinov]

Thank you for the reply!
How do I specify in VEEAM that I only want to take a full at the end of the month?

[murda]

Thank you for the reply!
How do I specify in VEEAM that I only want to take a full at the end of the month?

You don't. The .vbk is a full backup from all your vm machines. (reverse incremental, so your latest backup from veeam is always a full backup).
So if you chedule a tape backup monthly, just add the .vbk file because the name from the .vbk file won't change.

So every month you have a full backup from veeam on tape.

[pmalinov]

You don't. The .vbk is a full backup from all your vm machines. (reverse incremental, so your latest backup from veeam is always a full backup).
So if you chedule a tape backup monthly, just add the .vbk file because the name from the .vbk file won't change.

So every month you have a full backup from veeam on tape.

In that case, Do I need to tell VEEAM to take full backups when I setup the backup sets? Right now we do not specify (in VEEAM under the advanced settings) to "perform full backup on these days:"

[vbussiro]

You don't need that, nor another job. As said before, the vbk file is always "up-to-date", and vrb contains older data (that's why it's a reversed incremental). So copying the vbk file of your current job will make it, as it's the only file needed in case of restore.

[pmalinov]

Do I need to delete the .VBK file after it is placed on tapes?

[Gostev]

No, you do not need or should delete anything from disk.

[pmalinov]

In that case, I may not even need a script, right?
I can just monitor when my VEEAM backup is usually complete and then set up BackupExec to start 1 hour after that.

[Gostev]

That is correct. But more robust approach would be to start BackupExec job as post-job activity of Veeam Backup job via script. Otherwise, the jobs may overlap one day if Veeam Backup job takes much longer to complete than usual because of certain issues (for instance, because some router port falls back from 1Gb to 100Mb). So you would have to babysit this.

[pmalinov]

Thank you!

[NightBird]

Could we have this famous script or it is confidential ?

Regards,
Boris

[Gostev]

Boris, no it is not confidential. As I've mentioned in my post above, you can get the BackupExec integration guide from our support. This guide also includes that famous script Thank you.

[TrevorBell]

Hi Guys,

http://ict-freak.nl/2009/08/20/veeam-ba ... e-by-side/

This also work but on the example a " is missing it should read “C:\Program Files\Symantec\Backup Exec\bemcmd.exe” -o01 -j"JobName_Backup"


Hope this helps.

Trev

[turnerr12]

No, you do not need or should delete anything from disk.

Hi, so when my Veeam backup server fills up with .vrb and .vbk files, how can I clean up some files? (We have a separate job created for each VM).

Cheers
Ric

[TrevorBell]

The renetion policy can be set so after x amount of backups the oldest is deleted

[turnerr12]

Hi Trevor

Is that the "Number of rollback points to keep" under Advanced?
Ric

[Vitaliy S.]

Ric,

Yes, that's right. By adjusting that value you specify how many points in time to keep for your backup job. The default value is 14, but you can choose any number that suits you most.

[turnerr12]

Sorry, to clear up then. The .vbk file is the file that it creates the very first time. Subsequent backups create .vrb files. So if the .vbk file always contains the latest backup that you require to restore - what is the use in the .vrb files?
We have ours set to 5 rollback points as we thought you required the vbk as the base image and then the .vrb files as the incrementals on top.
Ric

[Gostev]

Ric, your server will never fill up with backup files, as they are automatically cleaned up according to retention policy specified in the job settings. This process is fully automated - you do not need to do anything manually.

[Vitaliy S.]

Ric,

Just wanted to add that VRB files may be needed in case you want to do a File-Level Restore from the backup that was made a week ago or so. Malware/virus infection of the source VM is another good example why you need VRB files, because when you run the job your current backup gets infected too, but not the rollback, so you're always able to restore to the most stable version of your VM.

[kaare]

Ric, your server will never fill up with backup files, as they are automatically cleaned up according to retention policy specified in the job settings. This process is fully automated - you do not need to do anything manually.

Hi Gostev. Is there a way to manually trig the automatic cleaning of obsolete restore points?

My Veeam installation (v. 4.1.1) is now unable to perform backup due to lack of disk space. I have reduced the number of restore points from 14 to 7 in the backup job definition but the job fails after a few seconds and in the list of backups it still says 14 restore points. Please advise.

Regards,
Kaare

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Kaare,

You can delete unneeded restore points (VRB files) manually. But in this case restore points will still be present in configuration database and if you attempt to restore to earlier point in time the restore would fail due to the file missing. But as soon as your new retention policy takes place, the references in the configuration DB will also be removed.

[kaare]

Thank you Vitaliy.

Kaare