Tape Scenarios

[phil-ch]

Dear Community,

I'm a bit unhappy with the User Guide regarding to the tape topics. So I contacted the support whose forwarded me to an Inside System Engineer. The ISE sent links to the User Guide.

Now you're the last best hope.

Does anyone have more information of Veeam and Tape together?

Or knows the config steps to the following specific scenarios?

Scenario 1:
- daily reversed incremental job
- daily copy job with 4 weekly GFS fulls
- weekly tape job of the daily copy job to the weekly media pool => 1 full backup on tape
- monthly tape job of the daily copy job to the monthly media pool => 1 full backup on tape
- no increntals to tape

If I configure that the monthly tape includes all fulls since the last monthly run.

Scenario 2:
- forward incremental job with synthetic full
- weekly tape job of the daily backup job to the full media pool => 1 full backup on tape
- daily tape job of the daily backup job to the incremental media pool => 5 incrementals on tape


If I configure that the tape contains sometimes multiple full backups. Additional the console shows that on the tape are a lot of incrementals (more than a month). But this is not possible because this would exceed the tape size.


Many thanks in advance,
Phil

[veremin]

Scenario 1:
- daily reversed incremental job
- daily copy job with 4 weekly GFS fulls
- weekly tape job of the daily copy job to the weekly media pool => 1 full backup on tape
- monthly tape job of the daily copy job to the monthly media pool => 1 full backup on tape
- no increntals to tape

If I configure that the monthly tape includes all fulls since the last monthly run.

Create a backup to tape job, disable processing of increments, set a weekly schedule for it, and make it create a virtual full backup on the very same day that it runs. Same applies to additional monthly job.

Or you don't want for a backup to tape job to copy GFS fulls?

Scenario 2:
- forward incremental job with synthetic full
- weekly tape job of the daily backup job to the full media pool => 1 full backup on tape
- daily tape job of the daily backup job to the incremental media pool => 5 incrementals on tape

For how long you want to store those points on tapes? Or you're willing to overwrite them on weekly basis? What retention does the source job have?

Thanks.

[phil-ch]

Hi Vladimir,
Thanks for your reply.

Create a backup to tape job, disable processing of increments, set a weekly schedule for it, and make it create a virtual full backup on the very same day that it runs. Same applies to additional monthly job.

Is there any possiblity to miss the weekly job when the mothly runs?

Or you don't want for a backup to tape job to copy GFS fulls?

Yes, I don't like to copy the GFS full to the tape. Just the newest point of the copy job as a full backup.

[veremin]

Is there any possiblity to miss the weekly job when the mothly runs?

You mean to let the monthly job overrun the weekly one? Only by disabling/enabling unneeded job either manually or automatically (PowerShell).

Yes, I don't like to copy the GFS full to the tape. Just the newest point of the copy job as a full backup.

May I ask you why? GFS restore points are created solely for long term archival purpose and tapes seem to be perfectly inline with this idea.

Thanks.

[phil-ch]

You mean to let the monthly job overrun the weekly one? Only by disabling/enabling unneeded job either manually or automatically (PowerShell).

This would be a great feature for upcoming releases. Anyhow this is not the main issue.

May I ask you why? GFS restore points are created solely for long term archival purpose and tapes seem to be perfectly inline with this idea.

In this case it makes not sense to differ between weekly and monthly tapes.

My or my customers expectation is the following:
normal backup job => short-term backup, from hourly up to daily (retention 60 days)
copy job => "middle"-term backup, daily copy 2 points + 4 weekly (GFS)
tape job => long-term backup/(DR other location), 8 tape sets for weekly backups (keep 8 weeks), 12 tape sets for monthly backup (keep 12 months), tape set for yearly backup (keep 10 years) All these tapes (sets) should just have one restore point.
So I don't like to have all weekly points on my monthly tapes. I don't need it.

[veremin]

Hmm, currently to achieve the described GFS scenario certain workarounds are required, and those might be complicated.

[phil-ch]

Hmm, currently to achieve the described GFS scenario certain workarounds are required, and those might be complicated.

This would work for the reversed-incremental backup job itself but not for the backup copy job. I need the GFS weeklys on the disk but not on the tape. Copy the backup job directly to the tape is not possible due backup frequency.
Do you have any other ideas?

[veremin]

So, you're willing to achieve identical GFS retention on both disk (backup copy job) and tapes (tape job), right? Or some GFS points should be present only on disk and not copied to tapes?

[phil-ch]

So, you're willing to achieve identical GFS retention on both disk (backup copy job) and tapes (tape job), right? Or some GFS points should be present only on disk and not copied to tapes?

Not the identical GFS retention on both. Some GFS points (four) on the disk. This is just to extend the on premise restore options.
GFS rotation schema on tape. But only one restore point per media set.

The best thing would be an option to copy only the latest VBK to tape (like the first time of a new tape job).

[veremin]

The proposed workarounds might work for backup copy job, as well. Though, you'd have to put virtual full backup into use.

However, since you're already creating GFS restore points with backup copy job, those points will be also copied to tape mediums in addition to virtual full points; which might be undesired behaviour.

Please, be aware that we do plan to introduce proper GFS mechanism on tapes in the next product version, so, kindly stay updated.

Thanks.