Because of significant changes in both configuration and backup formats, we may not be able to provide the upgrade from BETA to GA build, and/or ability to restore from BETA backups in GA build.
We have a system we want to back up with VEB 1.5 to a DD Boost repository, but the backup chain length limit of 60 is a problem with forever incremental only on VEB 1.5. It seems like VEB 2.0 will let us create periodic active fulls, but the above note in the 2.0 beta docs has me worried that we might get stuck if we began to use it now.
Is the GA for 2.0 coming soon, as in days or a couple of weeks? Is it safe to assume that beta 2.0 backups will be restorable with GA 2.0 without any surprises, or not quite yet?
VAW release is not days away and I wouldn't expect the GA version to be able to "read" backup files created by a beta version (this is not a focus for our QA team). The beta version should not be used in production, but the 60 restore points (days) limit should give you enough time before VAW 2.0 goes GA.
Is it safe to assume that beta 2.0 backups will be restorable with GA 2.0 without any surprises
We do not provide guarantee on BETA compatibility with GA, as stated in Known issues. It it’s safe to use beta code now but there is a huge chance you won’t be able to continue ‘beta backup chain’ with 2.0 GA version.
I will do some testing with the beta, but in the mean time for production, is there a way to force an active full with 1.5? The only other way I could think of getting around the DD Boost limit with 1.5 is a new repository/DD Boost storage unit every 60 backups.
You could keep the retention low (a couple of days) and then use task scheduler to automatically create a new standalone full backup (you can do that by using the commandline in a script that you schedule)