Active Full Backup problem

[rubvaz]

Hello,

We are using Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 and we had configured 3 tasks with incremental backup every day and an active full backup every Friday. The first task is scheduled to run at 20:00h from Monday to Friday, the second task is scheduled to run after the first and the third is scheduled after the second.

The incremental backup’s are running ok but the active full backup of Friday is not working fine, we had a success in the task log but we only have a full backup for the first task the other two are incremental.

Is there any problem with active full backups on concatenated tasks?

Thanks

[DGrinev]

Hi Ruben and welcome to the community!

Can you clarify is the source for all 3 tasks the same? Also, if I got it right, a task = backup job?
I'd not recommend you to stay with the described scenario, since the job chaining has numerous of disadvantages. Thanks!

[rubvaz]

Thanks DGrnev, I'll check the post that you give me.

Let me answer first your second question yes I was writing task to speak about a backup job.
About your first questions I’m not sure about what do you mean about the source, all 3 jobs are VMware backup jobs working with the same VMware infrastructure but with different servers on each one. Did I answer your question?

[Andreas Neufert]

I think the confusion comes from the fact that we don´t understand the setup and job configuration.

Overall you select within a VM backup job the backup mode (Syntetic Full + Incremental for example or just "Incremental") which will create full and incrementals based on the selected backup mode. There is no need for creation of 2 Jobs for full and incremental processing. You need to do this within one Job.

Please check as well: https://www.veeam.com/kb1799 There are some animations that gives you a good idea of the backup modes and file chains.

[rubvaz]

Yes it’s the most possible that I’m not explaining the setup correctly. Let me try again.

We have a 3 VMware backup job from Monday to Friday, on every job we have grouped the virtual machines by its operative system. Each job is an incremental backup job which creates an active full backup on Friday. The scheduled time for the first job is 20:00 h, the second job is scheduled to run after the first ends and the third one is scheduled to run after the second’s end.

With the incremental backups on Monday to Thursday everything goes OK, but on Friday we only have the Active Full Backup of the first job. The other two job still do an incremental backup.

I’ve checked the configuration and it is the same on the 3 jobs.

[Andreas Neufert]

Now I understand. Thank you.

The Job setup works in that way, that it will produce only a active full on the day you have selected. If one of the Jobs start slips to the next day, it will only create an incremental as only on friday it will create a full. Anyway Job chaining is not there to schedule the jobs in that way. The issue here beside your experienced "no active full" is that when one of the job fails the others will not get started at all.

With Veeam you always start more jobs than you have ressources on proxy and repository (task slots). That way whenever a task slot is free the next VM disk will be processed. If you start more Jobs than you have ressources, the jobs just wait and instantly use the avialable ressources => ideal backup window.

Overall the priority is VM disks of a started VM backup => VMs within a Job => scheduled time of a job. That means if you start your 3 jobs within 5 min, the first job will process all VM backups. Then when free ressources are available the second one starts in parallel and then the third.

This will optimize your backup window, make it more reliable and as well the active full will always work as the job starts on friday and not potentially on saturday.

[rubvaz]

The Job setup works in that way, that it will produce only a active full on the day you have selected. If one of the Jobs start slips to the next day, it will only create an incremental as only on friday it will create a full. Anyway Job chaining is not there to schedule the jobs in that way. The issue here beside your experienced "no active full" is that when one of the job fails the others will not get started at all

Thanks Andreas that reason has a lot of sense. We think that the start date of the job would be the date on the moment after the first job started not the one of the moment than ends.