Discussions related to exporting backups to tape and backing up directly to tape.
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ShawnKPERS
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Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

Is there a way to tell a tape job to ignore the archive bit and to always backup all related files in a specific backup job? I have a classic daily M-F job that does an active full every Monday and incremental the rest of the week and once the job is done it dumps to tape. I know reverse incrementals can do this better but I would like to do it using standard incrementals if possible. I only keep 1 restore point so I don't have to worry about backing up last weeks files I just want all of this weeks files up the the current moment on that days tape. Is this an option?
ShawnKPERS
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

I saw that but thought that was only going to grab bits that have changed under the current chain. With that checked will it continue to backup the fills and inrementals if it already backed them up to tape the day before? If that is the case then that is what I am looking for.
Shestakov
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by Shestakov »

Hello Shawn,
there is an option in the advanced job settings which let you copy only the last chain.
If I understood correctly you need all files of the current chain, but not previous chains.
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ShawnKPERS
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

Okay the last person who suggested this deleted his post so I will re-ask the question. Will this option process all the backup files to tape each day under the current chain? I am not as worried about the current chain part since I have it set to only keep the current chain but will this tell the job to pull all related files to the job each day regardless of the archive bit?
ShawnKPERS
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

@Shestakov Sorry I just noticed the link in the post and looked at the description and it looks like that is exactly what I am looking for. I will give it a shot tonight!
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by Shestakov »

Shawn, no problem. With the option enabled the job will copy only the last chain during the first run and will copy only new backups on the following runs.
Is that what you want to achieve?
Thanks!
PTide
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by PTide » 1 person likes this post

Hi,

I deleted the post because I've spotted some ambiguities in your OP and wanted to rephrase the answer, but my colleague was faster. I'd like to note that Veeam does not rely on an archive bit, but checks against its database whether the backup has been already written to tape.

Thanks
ShawnKPERS
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

Okay thanks for both answers because I was also wanting to know if that was the case as well @PTide. Because worse case I was going to go to use revers incrementals and then dump to tape knowing each file has to get touched each time a backup ran and if that is the case then it would get dumped to tape if Veeam checked for an archive bit but it makes more sense that it would keep track for itself and not rely on the archive bit.

I made the change and just ran the job and it did dump to tape but only the incremental for the the last run again. To answer your question @Shestakov I don't want to dump the files only on the first run but on every run for that chain. My end goal is starting from the beginning of the week on Monday to push the full that is created to tape then Tuesday dump not just the incremental but also again the full from Monday and so on. So by Friday when it runs it will have on that days tape the Full from that Monday and all the incrementals from the rest of the week.

I know I would then be re-backing up the same full 5 times to tape and also the incrementals a number of times depending on the day but we have the room and time to get it all on a single tape and that then simplifies pulling tapes from our off site tape storage vendor since we would know as long as we have a tape from the day we need or after that day for the week we will have all the files required to do a restore off that single tape and it also helps when there are issues and that days backups don't make it to tape or we have to re-write the tape due to another backup issue, we will just get the files in the next backup to tape regardless if it was already backed up or not.

Is there a simple way to do this? The only other option I can think of is to have a files to tape job run and backup the folders each day after the daily runs but I am not a huge fan of that option especially since we use per-vm/scale-out storage so the files are split across multiple repositories and I would have to remember to adjust the directories if I were ever to change the backup job itself or added or removed a new repository to the scale-out cluster.
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

Also I was just thinking how would this work if you were using reverse incrementals and you dumped to tape and you had the tape job set to backup full and incrementals. Based off the logic you have given me the incrementals would never go to tape since in theory the full from the previous day was dumped to tape so the next days backup would not put the in incremental file that was made of the previous day to tape since even though the incremental is new the bits in it are not and had already been dumped to tape.

Is that right? I have always wandered about that as it help me understand the logic used by Veeam when handling jobs to tape.
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by PTide »

My end goal is starting from the beginning of the week on Monday to push the full that is created to tape then Tuesday dump not just the incremental but also again the full from Monday and so on. So by Friday when it runs it will have on that days tape the Full from that Monday and all the incrementals from the rest of the week.
Wait, do you want to have the following set of tapes:

Monday Tape: Full (Mon)
Tuesday Tape: Full (Mon)+ Inc (Tue)
Wednesday Tape: Full (Mon)+ Inc (Tue) + Inc (Wed)

and so on, is that correct? If so then it seems that you should better stick with File to tape job.

Also may I ask why wouldn't you copy only increments each day and then perform synthetic full at the end of the week?
<...>the incrementals would never go to tape<...> Is that right?
Yes, with reverse incremental job source, backup to tape job writes only full backups to tape.

Thanks
ShawnKPERS
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

@PTide, you are correct in your demonstration of how I would want this to work. I did't think about doing a synthetic full at the end of the week as well but I would still would like to see each tape independently hold everything it would need to do a restore of all the previous days. Worse case I can just go back to revers incrementals as that would at least give me everything I would need to restore from that day on one tape.

But it looks like you answered my question of if it is possible or not and it looks like it is but I am just an not a fan of doing a file backup option as I can see it causing potential issues of not getting the right data to tape than it would be to just do a standard incremental each day. We used to backup all files to tape way back before Veeam added tape when we were on Symanec and I ended up moving over to reverse incrementals when we went to Veeam and just stuck a full of that day on each tape. I am currently doing my annual gut backups processes/storage and rebuild and rethink how we do backups based of the technology that exists in the current version of Veeam and thought it might be possible go back to backing up everything each day to tape.
ShawnKPERS
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by ShawnKPERS »

Okay one more question then, lets say you do reverse incrementals and you backup M-F then dump to tape each day but one of the days there was an issue and that full for the day didn't get dumped to tape. Is Veeam set to backup the new incremental file of the previous day when it backs up the full for that current day if it knows there was an issue backing up the fill the previous day?

So it would look like this:

Monday Veeam Job: Active Full (Mon)
Monday Tape Job: Active Full (Mon)

Tuesday Veeam Job: Reverse Full (Tue), Inc (Mon)
Tuesday Tape: Reverse Full (Tue)

Wednesday Veeam Job: Reverse Full (Wed), Inc (Tue), Inc (Mon)
Wednesday Tape: Ran into issues and noting was put to tape that day

Thursday Veeam Job: Reverse Full (Thu), Inc (Wed), Inc (Tue), Inc (Mon)
Thursday Tape: Reverse Full (Thu) + Inc (Wed)

Friday Veeam Job: Reverse Full (Fri), Inc (Fri), Inc (Wed), Inc (Tue), Inc (Mon)
Thursday Tape: Reverse Full (Fri)

I don't enable incremental backups on reverse backups to tape but I would if it worked like this.
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by Dima P. »

Hi Shawn,

Generally, missed backup (or file) will be placed to tape during next job run. In your case, it’s a reversed incremental backup and full backup does not exist on the day when tape job kicks in. To work around described issue you have to enable backup tape for incremental restore points and set synthesized full backup to be created every day of the week. Now, when full backup is missing on disk synthesized will be created instead.
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Re: Dumping the full and all incrementals to tape each day

Post by Dima P. »

Please, disregard my previous post. In case of reversed incremental full backup only last full is going to be processed and synthesized full backup option is ignored.
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