Backup settings for GFS on StoreOnce Catalyst

[ianbutton1]

We have VBR 9.5, storage is two HP StoreOnce 4700s using Catalyst stores – one 4700 is local on fibre, one is remote on 1GbE link.
I want to keep 28 days of backups in the local primary store, and 4 weekly, 11 monthly and 5 yearly GFS copies in the remote secondary store. (There doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid this “all archive eggs in one basket”, except perhaps by obtaining a third StoreOnce!)
But the documentation is a bit confusing –
“Methods for Archive Backups Creation” says Synthetic Fulls are not recommended for GFS on dedupe appliances (like StoreOnce). And it recommends to tick “Read Entire RP ..... from source”.
Veeam/HP (joint) “VBR 9.x with HP StoreOnce Catalyst Configuration Guide” recommends Synthetics for Full backup (i.e. primary) for double speed compared with Active Fulls.
In Backup Settings, you can create Synthetic , or Active Full, or both types together.
My questions are :-
1.Is it OK to have weekly Synthetic and monthly Active Fulls? (Are Active Fulls advisable to guard against a corrupted incremental breaking a long chain based on a Synthetic?)
2.Is it best to have all the Full backups created on the same day of the week – Backup Synthetic &/or Active Fulls, and also GFS Archive copies? If on different days, then the first one is removed if the second is created (not more than one Full per week is allowed) – which seems a waste of effort.
3.Does the relatively slow link to the remote StoreOnce (GFS archive store) affect the answers to Qs 1 & 2?
Thanks in advance,
Ian

[foggy]

StoreOnce performs virtual synthetics, so the limitation mentioned in the user guide doesn't apply. Basically, you can avoid active fulls at all if you test your backups. Virtual synthetics is also preferable in case of a slower link. I'm not sure I got p.2 correctly, so I appreciate if you clarify a bit.

[ianbutton1]

Thanks @foggy. Are you saying the "Methods for Archive Backups Creation" is wrong for StoreOnce Catalyst (even though it's a dedupe appliance). So will the documentation be corrected?

Just to try & clarify Q2 :-
For backups, on Advanced tab, we have Synthetic Fulls on Thursday, and monthly Active Fulls on 1st Monday, and the Schedule page shows Incrementals at 00:10 daily. For Backup Copy of this job, we have GFS Full backup schedule to be the 00:10 on 1st Saturday of the month/year (i.e. the closest RP to this). But it all looks a bit out of sync - might it work better if I choose the same time & day of the week for all (e.g. Saturdays for everything)?

I read that Veeam only allows 1 Full per week - presumably an Active Full will supersede (and remove) a Synthetic Full taken in the last 7 days; and conversely, a Synthetic Full will build from either last week's Synthetic, or an Active Full taken since then, + any later Incrementals . So might it work more tidily (faster? less duplicated effort? just simpler to understand?) if Synthetic & Active Fulls work on the same day (1 Active Full, then 3 weekly Synthetics in the month); and if GFS schedule uses the same day/time settings for the RP?

Thanks
Ian

[foggy]

Thanks @foggy. Are you saying the "Methods for Archive Backups Creation" is wrong for StoreOnce Catalyst (even though it's a dedupe appliance). So will the documentation be corrected?

I'll ask documentation team to clarify regarding storages that have virtual synthetics.

For backups, on Advanced tab, we have Synthetic Fulls on Thursday, and monthly Active Fulls on 1st Monday, and the Schedule page shows Incrementals at 00:10 daily. For Backup Copy of this job, we have GFS Full backup schedule to be the 00:10 on 1st Saturday of the month/year (i.e. the closest RP to this). But it all looks a bit out of sync - might it work better if I choose the same time & day of the week for all (e.g. Saturdays for everything)?

You can configure both synthetic and active fulls for the same day just to allow equal time periods between them (more "even" schedule), but it will also work with the way it is currently set up.

I read that Veeam only allows 1 Full per week - presumably an Active Full will supersede (and remove) a Synthetic Full taken in the last 7 days;

You can have several fulls a week, no issues with that. Active full doesn't remove the synthetic one, restore points are always deleted according to the specified retention.

[foggy]

Hi Ian, we've clarified the recommendations in the user guide, thanks for the heads up!