Understanding the all confusing Backup Copy Job, a few Q's.

[ceez]

HI MODS!
I WOULD APPREACIATE IT IF YOU PLEASE DO NOT MERGE MY POST WITH THAT OTHER GFS RELATED THREAD. My previous post was merged and it was just lost there, it's easier to follow if kept separate.
Thank you
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Hi everyone,

So I think that I grasp the concept of the BCJ feature but need some clarification.
I understand that BCJ creates a copy of the backups that I already have in my backup repository and puts a copy in another backup repository. The BCJ does not affect production VM's since the BCJ is not touching the live VM's, it's making a copy from the original backup jobs in the backup repository.

So now I want to understand how to create 1 weekly job per week of the month. At the end of the month keep one monthly backup (and delete the previous weeks of the month), and at the end of the year only keep the last weekly backup as my yearly (and delete all the previous monthly backups) only leaving me with a December backup for the entire year..

This is how my BCJ looks like along with the schedule:






Are these settings correct to achieve the above?

From the above the following questions arise:
On the first screenshot, why is there a "Copy every" option with if there's a weekly schedule that shows Saturday at 22:00 which is what I selected on the Schedule options?

Also why do I need restore points as well in the copy jobs? If I run all my backups only once a day at night then all I want is a once a night backup copy job a well, what is the advantage or disadvantage of this option? My regular backup jobs have restore points of anywhere between 7 days and 9 days but applying the same to a copy job is a bit confusing to me.

Sorry if it's confusing but the backup copy job creates more questions than answers while running through the wizard.

thanks
ceez

[veremin]

I understand that BCJ creates a copy of the backups that I already have in my backup repository and puts a copy in another backup repository. The BCJ does not affect production VM's since the BCJ is not touching the live VM's, it's making a copy from the original backup jobs in the backup repository.

Backup copy job isn't about copying backup files as a whole, but rather about synthetically creating required restore points in "target" location from VM data in source backup repositories.

So now I want to understand how to create 1 weekly job per week of the month. At the end of the month keep one monthly backup (and delete the previous weeks of the month), and at the end of the year only keep the last weekly backup as my yearly (and delete all the previous monthly backups) only leaving me with a December backup for the entire year..

Before we start to talk first, let's clarify the abovementioned scenario, because I'm not sure whether I follow you on that. You want to have 4 weekly restore points, 12 monthly, 1 yearly, but all weekly restore points should be deleted, once a monthly one is created, and the same applies to monthly-yearly scenario, right?

Thanks.

[VladV]

One feature request that I placed a while back was exactly this. 1 backup copy per week on a specific day like Friday. If you set copy every 7 days, you have to manually start the backup copy cycle on Thursday to achieve a cycle on every Friday. But if you manually start a cycle, you break the day of the week synchronization.

If you would have had the ability to choose on what day of the week, for the each 7 day copy, you could simply achieve what you are looking for.

Another workaround is to set the schedule in which the job can transfer data, but this backfires when you use rotated media and the media is missing after re-enabling the job (because of a restart or planned maintenance). You will be spammed that the media is missing even though the job is not permitted to transfer data in that period.

[nholman]

Before we start to talk first, let's clarify the abovementioned scenario, because I'm not sure whether I follow you on that. You want to have 4 weekly restore points, 12 monthly, 1 yearly, but all weekly restore points should be deleted, once a monthly one is created, and the same applies to monthly-yearly scenario, right?

This is exactly what im after doing but there was no answer to it - would appreicate if anyone could tell me what settings i need to achieve this?

[foggy]

Nick, to exactly follow this kind of retention you would need to utilize some scripting, since native GFS retention in backup copy job maintains the number of restore points for each GFS "layer" specified in the job settings.

[nholman]

oh right i see.

So let me ask a qick question - lets say i have 4 weekly in the month of december - then the last day in december a monthly backup. does the monthly backup take all the data in the 4 weekly bakcups to create the monthly backup?

[foggy]

It works in a different way, please review this section for details. Feel free to ask for additional clarification, if something is not clear.

[nholman]

OK so if i wanted to restore to a particular week on a monthly backup this wouldnt work - id have to set the weekly bakcups to say 52weeks for a whole years worth?

[foggy]

Correct.