Off Site Tape Retention

[jshaffer]

Hello,

We currently use backup exec and run a monthly full and daily incrementals. Once that media set is finished, we export the tapes and sent them off site. We are required to keep the tapes offsite for two years. How can I meet this requirement with Veeam?

We are thinking we setup a forever incremental to disk then a tape job that runs daily and includes incrementals. We would like to keep as many recovery points as possible on disk ~180. For the tape job the Full Backup Schedule will be set to the first Friday of every month. After that full is created we are planning to take the tapes from initial full and incrementals up to the full backup schedule date and ship them off site.

Will this work? Can we set different media sets? Media set 1 (Initial full and increments right up to new synthetic full) Media set 2 (New synthetic full and increments up until the next synthetic full)

[Dima P.]

Hello and welcome jshaffer.

We currently use backup exec and run a monthly full and daily incrementals. Once that media set is finished, we export the tapes and sent them off site. We are required to keep the tapes offsite for two years. How can I meet this requirement with Veeam?

Sure. You need to configure desired retention on the media pool to achieve your retention goal.

Will this work? Can we set different media sets? Media set 1 (Initial full and increments right up to new synthetic full) Media set 2 (New synthetic full and increments up until the next synthetic full)

Yes, you can define the media set creation in the media pool properties. Cheers!

[jshaffer]

Hi Dima,

I have looked at these settings previously. I guess I don't quite understand and am probably overthinking it.

"Sure. You need to configure desired retention on the media pool to achieve your retention goal."

Do I just export the tapes that I want to send off? I am trying to avoid pulling tapes and the tape backup job seeing no tapes for back and then the job creates a new full when a virtual full is set to automatically run. I don't want to duplicate that data.

"Yes, you can define the media set creation in the media pool properties."

How do I do this on a schedule when I want it to be monthly? I only see Daily as an option for schedule.

[Dima P.]

Hi jshaffer.

Do I just export the tapes that I want to send off? I am trying to avoid pulling tapes and the tape backup job seeing no tapes for back and then the job creates a new full when a virtual full is set to automatically run.

Retention value defines when tape media is expired and can be reused (when Veeam B&R can automatically take the tape and write new data to it). You can set retention to 'never overwrite' and export all the media whenever it’s required.

How do I do this on a schedule when I want it to be monthly? I only see Daily as an option for schedule.

Indeed it's possible to select only daily/weekly media set creation schedule. However, if you plan to perform monthly export of all tape media, then there is no need to define the media set creation option (simply use do not create always continue): once tapes are exported new media set will be started automatically with the next tape job run.