Reverse Incremental to tape?

[gshaw]

Just a quick qu, probably a quick answer too

If I run the standard reverse incremental method for backup to a dedicated Veeam server can I archive to tape weekly by just backing up the large .vbk file without the .vrb increments (and do I need them in this case?)

Basically my thought is to have the chain of quick restore points available on disk as the primary restore method but have a full backup of a point in time i.e. end of the week or end of the month to keep as an archive. Depending on how big the jobs come out the whole lot might fit onto tape but in the event it doesn't would this work or will Veeam report an error on import knowing it's missing the rest of the chain?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Gerrard,

Yes, you can do that. No errors will be reported if you try to import only a VBK file to the backup console. Thanks.

[J1mbo]

So why is the Veeam paper on BackupExec so explicit that reverse incremental should not be used?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello James,

Basically there are two main reasons for that. One of them is that if you choose to go with reversed incremental mode then you will have to copy entire VBK file every time. This file contains full backup of the most recent state of your VMs. If you only do tape dumps weekly or even more rarily, this does not matter. However, if you need to backup to tape daily, this may cause some issues. However, if you're able to offload entire VBK file to tape during your tape backup window, and have enough tapes to accommodate dumping full backups to tape daily, then reversed incremental mode should be a good choice.

On top of that, please be aware that forward incremental mode should give you better incremental backup performance rates due to the fact that with forward incrementals you'll have three times less I/O, and thus much lower IOPS during incremental runs (but of course, you still have to pay the price during periodic full backup, which is typically for weekend though). The same refers to offloading backup files to tape, as only incremental changes (VIB file) should be transferred to tape, so backup to tape will go much faster.

Hope this makes sense.

[J1mbo]

Yes indeed, thanks very much indeed.

[WinstonWolf]

Hello,

We use Reverse Incremental Backup Method.
We want to Backup every Sunday to Tape.
We would like to have on every Sunday to Tape Backup an working vbk File .

What is the Best way ?

A virtual full Backup on Saturday and a Backup to Tape on Sunday ?

Is it possible to combine a reverse Incremental with an virtual full Backup to Tape ?

Michael

[PTide]

Hi,

In case of reverse incremental source job the most recent .vbk will be copied to tape even without Virtual Full configured. If any other questions arise please let us know.

Thank you.

[foggy]

Virtual full backup to tape is available for forever forward incremental backup jobs and backup copy jobs only.

[Stephan23]

Hi,

also a quick question regarding reverse incremental and tape.

At the moment we do daily incremental backups and an active full backup on the weekend. there is also a tape job running daily with two different tape sets/media pools: single tapes for increments and a couple tapes for the full backup.

So, as far as I understand this, I can't change the job to reverse incremental, because i would need multiple tapes every day for the vbk file, that gets created every day.

But what about the option to transform previous backup chains into rollbacks? would the tape job continue to work as before or would it also copy the vrb files?

Or is there maybe another way to safe disk space and/or have a longer backup chain in my case?

Stephan

[PTide]

Hi,

But what about the option to transform previous backup chains into rollbacks? would the tape job continue to work as before or would it also copy the vrb files?

.vrb files will be skipped from processing by the tape job. Also there is another way to save some space on the drive - you can switch to forever-forward incremental backup mode. That will also eliminate the need to copy full backups from the disk to tape as we offer virtual full backup feature.

[Stephan23]

first: you guys are awesome for being so active in the forum and clearly now what you're talking about !!!

You can use "Process latest full backup chain only"

so the vbk + vrbs and the same vbk + vibs are considered two separate backup chains?

[Dima P.]

Stephan,

This option works for all backup to tape source disk jobs.

[veremin]

I might be mistaken but you seem to want to save both disk and tape space. Thus, neither forward incremental with periodic full nor reversed incremental mode works for you, because it affects either one or the other part of your story.

Assuming I'm right, have not you thought about switching to forward forever incremental mode and let a backup to tape job create virtual full backup periodically?

Thanks,

[marieelieg]

Hello everyone,
Hope you are having a good day!

Just a quick question. If I have backup to disk that does reverse incremental and I want to take backup to tape for it, will this backup to tape take only .vbk file or .vbk and all .vrb files? In other words, can backup to tape job take .vrb files?

Thank you in advance!

[veremin]

will this backup to tape take only .vbk file

This.

In other words, can backup to tape job take .vrb files?

Only if you're using files to tape job.

Thanks.

[marieelieg]

Thank you v.Eremin!