Discussions related to exporting backups to tape and backing up directly to tape.
Post Reply
itskiguy
Novice
Posts: 4
Liked: never
Joined: Oct 12, 2016 2:19 pm
Full Name: Dylan Roehrig
Contact:

How does Backup to Tape choose its source restore point?

Post by itskiguy »

Hello,

I'm new to Veeam (we just started moving our jobs over from BE last week) and am now working on getting our weekly backups archived to tape. I'm wondering how B&R decides which restore points it should write off to tape. Here's how I have it set up:

I created a custom Media Pool called Weekly

The Tape Job is set up as follows:

Name: Exchange to Tape Weekly
Backup Files: Exchange job is selected (not the repository)
Full Backup: Weekly media set is selected
Incremental Backup: Unchecked
Options: Eject media upon job completion
Schedule: No schedule set yet

I right clicked the job and ran it manually. It seems like it's writing only the vbk and the oldest vib to tape:

Code: Select all

[color=#FF0000][b]10/13/2016 9:17:10 AM :: Building source backup files list started at 10/13/2016 9:17 AM 
10/13/2016 9:17:10 AM :: Full backup from Exchange2016-10-08T185907.vib (10/8/2016 12:00:00 AM) restore point will be placed to media set 
10/13/2016 9:17:10 AM :: New Exchange2016-10-07T190505.vbk restore point will be placed to media set  
10/13/2016 9:17:10 AM :: Source backup files detected. VBK: 1, VBK map: 1, VIB: 0 [/b][/color]
10/13/2016 9:17:11 AM :: Creating full backup map for E:\Backups\Exchange\Exchange2016-10-08T185907.vib 
10/13/2016 9:18:29 AM :: Queued for processing at 10/13/2016 9:18:29 AM 
10/13/2016 9:18:29 AM :: Required backup infrastructure resources have been assigned 
10/13/2016 9:19:14 AM :: Drive 1 (Server: dpsvrbackup2.tdpg.local, Library: IBM 3573-TL C.30, Drive ID: Tape1) locked successfully 
10/13/2016 9:19:14 AM :: Unloading tape 000725L4 from Drive 1 (Server: dpsvrbackup2.tdpg.local, Library: IBM 3573-TL C.30, Drive ID: Tape1) to Slot 22 
10/13/2016 9:19:42 AM :: Loading tape 000238L4 from Slot 17 to Drive 1 (Server: dpsvrbackup2.tdpg.local, Library: IBM 3573-TL C.30, Drive ID: Tape1) 
10/13/2016 9:20:24 AM :: Current tape is 000238L4 
10/13/2016 9:20:42 AM :: New tape backup session started, encryption: disabled 
10/13/2016 9:20:54 AM :: Processing full backups started at 10/13/2016 09:17:09 
10/13/2016 9:20:54 AM :: Processing Exchange2016-10-07T190505.vbk 

Is this expected? Based on what I had been told, I had thought that it would combine the vbk and all of the subsequent vib files on the fly and write the result to tape, but this seems to have chosen only the vbk and the oldest vib which would mean that when we run a full on Saturday, we're going to be a week behind writing to tape. The vsb file that was created is named according to the oldest vib file (Exchange2016-10-08T185907.vib_82fe636f-674a-4509-99b0-a998c198f4b0.vsb).

The guide on working with Tape Media (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/vsp ... media.html) doesn't seem to get into very specific details about how it works, only the basics of how to set it up.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Dylan
Shestakov
Veteran
Posts: 7328
Liked: 781 times
Joined: May 21, 2014 11:03 am
Full Name: Nikita Shestakov
Location: Prague
Contact:

Re: How does Backup to Tape choose its source restore point?

Post by Shestakov »

Hello Dylan and welcome to the community!
In your case VBR would write on tapes .vbk only as you set for the tape job.
There is no sense to copy the last vib along with vbk since you need all increments.
Could you explain your plan?
itskiguy
Novice
Posts: 4
Liked: never
Joined: Oct 12, 2016 2:19 pm
Full Name: Dylan Roehrig
Contact:

Re: How does Backup to Tape choose its source restore point?

Post by itskiguy »

Hi there, thanks for the warm welcome.

We've only got enough disk storage to keep about 7 days worth of backups at the moment, but our requirements are to keep backups of our data for years. So my plan is to run incrementals with B&R to disk, and then once per week write a full to tape which will then be stored offsite. I'd like for that job that's writing to tape to include that most recent Incremental (so what is written to tape is a Full based on the point in time that the last incremental ran). Ideally, it would include all of the incrementals for the week so that we have everything but I assume that is not how it works since no backup software I've ever worked with has operated like that (essentially allowing us to restore from any of the incrementals from that week off of a single tape job). I'm not doing Fulls or Synthetic Fulls.

If that's not clear, please let me know. Re-reading it, it makes sense to me, but I can see how someone outside of my head might not get what I'm saying.

Thanks
Dylan
Shestakov
Veteran
Posts: 7328
Liked: 781 times
Joined: May 21, 2014 11:03 am
Full Name: Nikita Shestakov
Location: Prague
Contact:

Re: How does Backup to Tape choose its source restore point?

Post by Shestakov »

Dylan,
You plan of keeping most recent backups on disk and historical ones on tape is sane and meets best practices.
If you want only full backups on the tape I would suggest using GFS media pools. If you want incremental on tapes without doing synthetic or active fulls on the source side, consider forever forward incrementals on the source job and Virtual Full Backup on tapes.
Thanks!
itskiguy
Novice
Posts: 4
Liked: never
Joined: Oct 12, 2016 2:19 pm
Full Name: Dylan Roehrig
Contact:

Re: How does Backup to Tape choose its source restore point?

Post by itskiguy »

Sorry for being a bit slow to get back to you. We're doing Forever forward Incrementals. The Virtual Full Backup is where I'm confused. According to the link you sent, Virtual Full is enabled automatically if the source job produces forever forward incrementals. What I was seeing when I ran my tape job was that the virtual full that was created was a week old, which I still don't understand. Is that because the default is to have the tape jobs run on Sunday, and so when I ran the job on Thursday, it ran it for the previous Sunday?
veremin
Product Manager
Posts: 20270
Liked: 2252 times
Joined: Oct 26, 2012 3:28 pm
Full Name: Vladimir Eremin
Contact:

Re: How does Backup to Tape choose its source restore point?

Post by veremin »

What I was seeing when I ran my tape job was that the virtual full that was created was a week old, which I still don't understand. Is that because the default is to have the tape jobs run on Sunday, and so when I ran the job on Thursday, it ran it for the previous Sunday?
Correct.

Kindly, check the link provided by Nikita:
This day indicates the day for which you want to synthesize full backup of the source VMs.

The virtual full does not necessary need to be scheduled on the day when the tape job runs. When the tape job starts, it synthesizes the source VMs state as they were on the chosen day. For example, you can set Friday as the virtual full day, and schedule the tape job to run on Saturday. The tape job will not run on Friday. On Saturday, the tape job copies blocks of data to reconstruct the state of the VMs as they were on Friday (or, if no backup is available for Friday, the closest day preceding Friday).
Thanks.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests