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Trin
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Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by Trin »

Hi,

I'm just trying to get my head round backup copy jobs, and the different files they produce but what I'm after is the best way to set up a backup copy job so that what I'm left with is one full backup file, at the end of each month, that I can then send offsite. I don't think I want a chain for these, I want to be able to look at each month independently, if necessary... if that makes any sense?!

Do I just need to set "Restore points to keep" to 12 and then "Keep the following restore points as full backups for archival purposes" to "Monthly backup: [12] Last Sunday of the month" or are those two settings for different things?

Many thanks
foggy
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by foggy »

You can set regular chain retention ("Restore points to keep" setting to any value (the minimum one is 2), GFS restore points (weekly, monthly, etc.) are not dependent on the regular chain.
Trin
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by Trin »

So in my example ("Restore points to keep" to 12 and then "Keep the following restore points as full backups for archival purposes" to "Monthly backup: [12] Last Sunday of the month"), after 6 months the Backup Copy job folder will contain a chain of 1 .vbk + 11 .vib files and an additional 6 separate .vbk files, one for each month?
skrause
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by skrause »

No, you would have 1 .VBK + 11 .VIB files for the normal chain that runs daily, then you would have and additional 12 .VBK files for your GFS retention.

If you are just shooting for GFS retention once a month and don't care about keeping anything else, set your "Restore points to keep" to 2. You will then have 1 .VBK and 1 .VIB file on disk for the active backup copy process and it will create/store 12 more .VBK files for your GFS retention policy on the last Sunday of each month.
Steve Krause
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StefanVM
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[MERGED] backup copy job does not start

Post by StefanVM »

Hi there,

I have a copy job that is idle for a few months now and I don*t seem to get it work.
The goal is to copy the most recent backup once a month and keep 12 restore points, so that I will have long-term backups for 1 year, one backup for every month.

Under Job, I set:
- Copy every 30 days. starting at 4:00

Under Target, I set:
- Restore points to keep: 12
- [check] keep the following restore points as full backups for archival purposes
- monthly backup: 1 (first Saturday of the month)

Under schedule:
- any time (continuously)


For me, setting up the backup copy job is super confusing but I could get it run for a daily copy. But this one here is never starting.

Can you help me out? What could be the problem?


- Stefan
DGrinev
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Re: backup copy job does not start

Post by DGrinev »

Hi Stefan,

If I got you right, you should switch to daily interval with 2 restore points to keep and retain 12 RPs for archival purposes.
Please review this existing discussion for additional information. Thanks!
StefanVM
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Re: backup copy job does not start

Post by StefanVM »

Thank you for the answer! But will it then not create a copy each day, which will be deleted again after 2 days?
I don't want to create a copy each day but only once a month, which should be a full backup.

It is very confusing for me why I would have to set the interval to once a day.
DGrinev
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by DGrinev »

You cannot set up the backup copy job to create only full backups monthly, that's why in order to have shortest possible backup chain I advise you to set simple retention to 2.
So, you can leave the backup copy job interval at 30 to get a restore point every 30 days. Thanks!
StefanVM
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by StefanVM »

Thanks for the answer!

But setting the interval to 30 did not work for me. It never copied anything and it was running for 3 months. But I am puzzled why it did not.
What could be a reason for the copy job to not start? I have other copy jobs that work just fine (daily interval) and I don't see anything in the settings that could be set incorrectly.
DGrinev
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by DGrinev »

There are no obvious reasons for inactivity of the job.
Please contact the support team and let them take a closer look at the logs. Thanks!
StefanVM
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by StefanVM »

I could get it to run now. However, it did not copy the backups because source and target repository are the same. Is that generally not possible?
DGrinev
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by DGrinev »

Hi Stefan,

Yes, the backup copy job won't work if the source and target are the same repository.
However, you can create another repository on the same volume and target the job there, then it should work.
Please keep in mind that retain backups and copies on a single device isn't a recommended approach, as in case of malfunction you will lose all the data. Thanks!
tntteam
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[MERGED] Backup copy once a month

Post by tntteam »

Hi there,

I'm trying to achieve the following retention policy :

backup : forever forward, no active full / no synthetic full, 45 points of restore
backup copy : copy only once a month, 12 points of restore (only full, no inc)

I can't tell veeam to backup copy on a specific day of the month (say I want backup copy for job A happen only on first saturday at specific start time to not overlap backups) because the "allowed window transfer time" is only on weekly schedule.

The only way to achieve this is to start the backup copy jobs the day I want them to run.
Problem : this is not elegant and will not survive a veeam server reboot.

So I was thinking : why not use windows scheduler that is more powerfull than veeam's one, and manual start a backup copy the day I want at the time I want, monthly.

Which settings should I do on the backup copy job to achieve what I want ?

I was thinking :
[job] Copy every : 1 day at 09:00 (I believe I don't care about this setting in fact)
[target] GFS enabled, 12 monthly backups (with First sunday or whatever, as I don't care like the setting above, since I want to start the copy manually), "Read entire restore point" checked
[Schedule] : Any time
Disable the backup copy job

And setup windows scheduled task :
run : first saturday at 10:00 am (or any other time I want), Sync-VBRBackupCopyJob -Job "<Job_Name>"


Would this works ?
Would this also run the backup files health check if I check "Perform files health check" and "Monthly" and the same day I run the windows scheduler task ?

Do you see any pitfall in this ? Any better way to do it ?

Thanks for your ideas
DGrinev
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Re: Backup copy once a month

Post by DGrinev »

Hi,

You cannot set up the backup copy job to create only a full backup once a month.
You can set a simple retention to 2 and backup interval to 30 days, this way the job will create one restore point every 30 days.
Also, you can determine backup window to let the copy job move the data on the 30 day out of backup hours.
GFS retention will be responsible for making a copy of a full backup every month.
Please review this existing discussion for additional information and do not hesitate to ask questions. Thanks!
tntteam
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by tntteam »

Hi,

The problem to let veeam scheduler decide is that you can't define which day of the month you want the backup copy to run.
The backup window is only weekly, not monthly.

I have 8 main jobs that needs to be GFS so it's 8 backup copy jobs.
I need to schedule the jobs at precise day of the month to not overlap with windows deduplication schedule.

Also veeam has no option to disallow backup copy jobs to overlap in activity time.
So if I check monday in backup window for 2 jobs, they will run at the same time, whereas they only need to run once a month and we have at least 4 mondays in a month...

Anyway, I know veeam can't do that, what I'm asking is can I do that using scripts ?
Please review and tell me :
I was thinking :
[job] Copy every : 1 day at 09:00 (I believe I don't care about this setting in fact)
[target] GFS enabled, 12 monthly backups (with First sunday or whatever, as I don't care like the setting above, since I want to start the copy manually), "Read entire restore point" checked
[Schedule] : Any time
Disable the backup copy job

And setup windows scheduled task :
run : first saturday at 10:00 am (or any other time I want), Sync-VBRBackupCopyJob -Job "<Job_Name>"


Would this works ?
Would this also run the backup files health check if I check "Perform files health check" and "Monthly" and the same day I run the windows scheduler task ?

Do you see any pitfall in this ? Any better way to do it ?
Thanks
tntteam
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Re: Backup Copy configuration confusion!

Post by tntteam »

Hi,

So you fusionned my topic with this one, but my problem is not the same. Can I open my own topic and not get it removed ? So I can get answers/ideas :)
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