Veeam GFS Yearly Only

[DamienL]

Hello,

We just updated from 9.5U4B to V11 and upgraded our main jobs to GFS.
Now we have a specific need with only yearly backup (4 years, 4 points)

I would like to avoid misclick !

I saw the limitation :
[For yearly GFS cycle] If you enable only the yearly GFS cycle, you can encounter the case when there is one full backup and a large number of increments for the whole year. To avoid this case, it is recommended to enable an additional weekly GFS cycle. Weekly GFS cycle will update the backup chain every week which will allow to remove excessive increment files.

Is it mandatory ? I just want yearly backup and not weekly backup in addition (this job has more than 20 To of VM)

In my mind i would like to put 4 x 365 in retention (days) and put active full on last sunday of November

Is it the right way ?

Thanks for your help

[foggy]

It is not mandatory. If you're ok with the incremental backup chain that long, feel free to use only yearly GFS retention.

[DamienL]

Hello foggy,

thanks for the answer

I just want only 4 restore points and i don't want incremental everyday. The plan is to have yearly Active full backups only.
Maybe i need to create a simple job without GFS with 4 x 365 in retention day ?

[foggy]

Yes, this is also an option.

[DamienL]

Ok i'll do that so, thanks !

[For yearly GFS cycle] If you enable only the yearly GFS cycle, you can encounter the case when there is one full backup and a large number of increments for the whole year.
Is it possible to have an explanation ? Because if the job is only scheduled one time per year..

[Mildur]

Backup and backup copy jobs are forward incremental in Veeam V11 with enabled GFS Retention.
If you don‘t have weekly fulls, the next full will be at the beginning of january.
Until then, every day there will be an increment backup. Because it‘s forward incremental.

You can use scheduling option „Monthly at this time.“ to decrease the amount of increments.
Or disable the scheduler and use a script with powershell (or starting manually) todo an active full backup every year for the job.

[DamienL]

Hello Mildur, thanks for the explanation.

In our case, i'll disable GFS and use traditional job. As i don't want use restore point to keep only 4 and avoid missclick i'm thinking to set 4 years of retention days.
I cannot set more than 999 days of retention days for 4 years backup.