tape clone possible?

[gustavouehara]

In my backup structure once a month , the last full of the month it's coppied to tape "backup to tape".
because of legal compliances , I need two copies of this tapes and one copy with long retention.
Veeam support a cloning tape function?


thank you

[veremin]

Nope, we don't support that. Thinking about your scenario, have you thought about having two backup to tape jobs: regular (short-term retention) and GFS (long-term retention) ones?

[gustavouehara]

v. Eremin thank you for your support
maybe in next release Veeam support it

[veremin]

Just to set proper expectations. So far we have not received a lot requests to justify the development efforts. So I'd not expect to see this feature in the foreseeable future. Thanks.

[skrause]

Nope, we don't support that. Thinking about your scenario, have you thought about having two backup to tape jobs: regular (short-term retention) and GFS (long-term retention) ones?

While that works for getting the data onto two different tapes for a DR scenario, because it uses two jobs the file names/timestamps on the tapes will be different. I know that in some compliance situations, that won't fly because the data has to be exact copies. Thus why cloning (or some form of being able to send the same backup file to two tapes within the same job) might be a necessary feature for some.

[pkelly_sts]

I haven't tried it myself but I'd have thought if you have two tape jobs both configured with the same source backup job, providing you complete the second copy to tape before the source backup (to disk) job starts its next pass, then the only thing copied to tape would be the most recent version which would be identical?

[veremin]

Correct.

[mrushforth]

I am wanting a feature adding to Veeam Backup and Replication. I would like to be able to copy 1 tape to another tape but according to Veeam Support that isn't available. They told me to open a feature request on here. Does anyone else want this feature. Thanks

[Didi7]

Yes, would be a nice feature. If I am not mistaken, this already has been requested several times.

Regards,
Didi7

[sbk]

I would like to see this feature as well. It's common to want another copy of a tape.. Legal holds, redundancy, multiple DR locations, etc.

[larry]

I work for a bank and need to keep a second tape at times this is what I do.
I use USB3 drives (16tb - $899) to temporary store tape jobs before sending to tape. This allows me to create two tapes or redo a tape job in the morning. By storing tape data on the USB drive I get all the features and retention, that normal backup to disk has, then I copy files to tape with Veeam. The two jobs run faster than just sending to tape, LTO 7 runs at the 300mps this way as it should. I also keep 31 days of changes on each tape as well. With the drives I also have 7tb of space to restore a whole tape if needed. If a Veeam server fails, I can just move the USB to another Veeam server and import the backups in 10 seconds. I used USB cards into the rack Veeam servers and have a shelf of USB drives, the drives are Seagate 2big – 16tb. Can use as 16tb or 8tb-mirror

[obroni]

Are there any planned features to allow you to copy the contents of a tape to another one? I'm thinking further down the line when we want to upgrade more than 2 LTO versions, we will need a migration strategy for data with long retention's.

[Dima P.]

Hi Nick,

It's not planned, but I totally understand your use case. Consider your vote added to this feature request. Thank you.

[Uglybob]

With LTO8 not supporting LTO6, the need to transition from LTO6 to a newer tape might become more important. I'd rather not have to restore all our 6 monthly backups and backing up again to LTO7 or 8. A way to copy would be way better.

[mmanzanelli]

I also need this funcinality. please add my vote for this functionality in the next release.

[theedge]

I need this as well.. we are a manufacturer of hardware used in disk stretch clusters and our customers / VARs / SIs are asking for tape stretch cluster functionality so it would be useful to us.

[ha_saqib]

Please count my vote for this functionality. EMC and other solution has given this option. Veeam should have this option for NAS Backup.

[toonv10]

I have some customers who also want the ability to clone tapes. So, I vote for this feature too.
For legal compliance they need two exact copies (both saved on different locations).

[Dima P.]

Hi folks,

Thanks you for your posts. I've added your votes to this feature request. Cheers!

[PariPari]

Same as uglybob.

Some Tapes need to be retained for 10+ Years and i.e. a LTO 4 Media is no longer compatible with current LTO7 or LTO8 Drives.
It is tedious to restore and copy all the tapes or to keep an "old" drive just for restore purpose..

[Dima P.]

I wonder if you are looking for ability to migrate tape media (from one generation to another) or you would like to write single backup twice to two different tape media targets. Thanks!

[pkelly_sts]

I think there's actually a use-case for at least two scenarios:
1) Migration of oldest backups to newer media (because of the hardware/media support issues mentioned)
2) To create a copy of a specific VM backup to a specific tape (want/need to ship or keep a specific backup for any reason)

I can also see some users wanting the ability to duplicate a tape in the manner you describe (tape copy written twice to different media)

[sasilik]

I will add my vote also to this feature request. Must restore just now some 7TB data to disk to get another copy of tapes made.

[DjMillward]

We also require the ability to create a duplicate copy of the tapes.

We have a GFS tape job set up, the issue is if we create a second job to write to a second set of tapes, it will need to run on a different day. Then we have the risk of the next day not being in the same month, and then it gets messy quickly.

Ideally it would be nice to be able to specify a duplicate media pool within the original job. So it writes one copy to locaiton one, then writes a second copy to the other pool within the same job.

[Dima P.]

Hello and welcome to the community DjMillward.

May I if you see this as additional check box in tape job settings or it should be separate tape job (similar to backup copy)? Thanks!

[holger-and-so]

Hello Dima P.
To it is best to have it as a separate tape job.
Thank you!

[Dima P.]

Holger,

Thanks for the clarification. Additional question: if that's the additional tape copy job, would you like to copy data from existing tape (i.e. you write your primary tape media and then use it as a source) or use disk backup as a source? Cheers!

[gmc_5303]

I'm requesting this feature: it will allow us to copy hundreds of tapes to the amazon glacier VTL. Their new glacier deep storage is getting cost down to ~$1/tb/month. I can't buy tape, tape drives, tape libraries, maintenance on said libraries, 3 copies they maintain, and a storage facility for that cost.

Please let's see some movement on tape copy.

At least in the first feature release let us do a 1:1 copy. That'll solve my VTL migration issue.

[Dima P.]

Hello and welcome to the community gmc_5303.

This is not possible now but we keep monitoring this request very attentively. As a potential workaround you could restore the data from your tape media to a temporary repository, create a new file to tape job that includes all the data and tape it out to the Amazon VTL emulated media.

[asc4]

Hi, just an other vote for tape copy functionality. Beside storing 2 identical copies of backup data in different locations and migrating to newer tape technology we have the policy on our IBM i and on Solaris to copy 12 years long term end of year backups after 6 years to be sure the content remains readable.
A remark to the workaround of restoring and re-saving to copy: We had big discussions with our auditors on that topic, regarding the fact, that you might alter data before re-saving.
Regards Axel