Question re Full active with Backup copy job

[fafa24]

Dear All,

I was reading in this forum that the recommendation is to use active full backup instead of synthetic backup to be absolutely be sure about the quality of the backup. Since synthetic backup puts together chains of incremental backup to a full backup which could be problematic if there would be a problem with a incremental backup.

Currently we run every Saturday a synthetic backup and in the other days during the week forward incremental backups. We also perform each day a backup copy to an offsite using the WAN accelerator.

My question: When I change now to active full backup for every Saturday what will happen to Backup copy jobs? Will the next backup copy job also run a full backup of the last restore point which would be an full active? I'm worried if that is the case I will get issues with offsite backups in terms of the backup window.

Thanks,
Edy

[PTide]

Hi,

Backup copy job does not run Fulls, instead it just pulls all the changes the changes that took place on the source side since last synchronization. During every run backup copy job performs a health check that calculates checksums for data blocks in the backup files stored on the target backup repository and compares them to the checksums that were previously stored to the backup files. So your Backup copy job will work in the same way as before - just pulling new blocks.

Will the next backup copy job also run a full backup of the last restore point which would be an full active?

No, it will be still an incremental. Actually, backup copy job is always forewer-forward incremental and does not produce intermediate fulls (GFS is another story).

Another thing that you should keeo in mind is that your backup copy job does not copy anything until at least one new restore point is available, thus your backup schedule might be broken if your active full takes too long.

Thank you.

[fafa24]

Wow what a fast reply.

This is very helpful and thanks for your detailed explanation.