Veeam Plug-in for SQL - GFS retention

[dbeerts]

Hi,

I was wondering how you can become a sort of GFS retention with the SQL Plug-in. I was thinking about separate jobs for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly backups.
But then I read this on https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120:
"Alternatively, if you enable retention policy for multiple types of backups of the same database, you must specify the same number of days to keep restore points in the backup chain for each backup type. Otherwise, Veeam Plug-in will keep restore points according to the lowest number."

As log backups are also needed, which will be kept for 2 days, what will be the behavior of the retention on full backups if configured as followed?
Daily: 14 days
Weekly: 4 weeks
Monthly: 1 year
Yearly: 7 years

[PetrM]

Hello,

There is no built-in GFS-retention for SQL plug-in but it's a valuable feature request for our future releases.

As mentioned in the user guide, there is no separate retention for full and log backups. The retention logic applies to the entire backup chain including full, differential and log backups. I would try the following workaround:
1. A daily SQL agent job for full backups and another one for periodic log backups: set 2 days retention in a daily full job. Thus, you will have log and full backups for 2 days
2. Create a separate image-level job with Copy-Only mode and GFS policy enabled

Thanks!

[dbeerts]

I was already afraid for this answer
GFS support for SQL plugin is a must have in my opinion. With the provided workaround you are still creating double backups and consuming twice the space required.
Any idea how long it would take to implement this option? I think it's relatively easy to do, as the plugin writes to separate .VAB files which could be flagged?

[PetrM]

Hello,

It's difficult to say now: sometimes features that seem to be easy to implement at first sight require a significant amount of engineering resources, and sometimes vice versa. I cannot comment on ETA but your request is noted.

Speaking about the workaround above, I recommend using the Capacity Tier to offload backups older than your operational restore window, thus saving space of the Performance Tier.

Thanks!

[Edward Parlakyan]

We are one of the largest Veeam customers in our country, and our organization has approved a policy for keeping long-term backups, which is an ideal fit for GFS settings. However, this data is SQL and SAP HANA databases, which we back up using Veeam plugins, since there are databases on the same server that are large but whose backups should not be included in the long-term policy, we need a more tailored solution.
I would be very grateful if Veeam added the ability to configure GFS settings in the SQL and SAP HANA Plug-in job settings. It would be a significant step forward for Veeam if the SQL plugin job could be created from the Veeam console itself, just like the SAP HANA plugin job, but with the GFS feature.

[david.domask]

HI Edward, welcome to the forums.

I've moved your post to an existing topic with the same request (for SQL plugin), but it is a known request. Thanks!

[Edward Parlakyan]

Hello David.

Thanks for the answer. I hope this feature will appear in the next versions.

[PetrM]

Hi Edward,

Yes, it is one of the most frequent requests for all application plug-ins but I cannot give any information about ETA. The main complexity for us is that we don't fully control the backup chain, as a plug-in we just provide an interface to stream data to Veeam infrastructure. Did I understand correctly that you'd like to see it as an additional setting of our application backup policy and not as a part of a standalone plug-in?

Thanks!