Offsite S3 copies and synthetic full backup

[mikkeland]

Hi,

We have just setup our first copy job to an offsite S3 compatible storage device. The initial backup was performed onpremises and the storage device was subsequently moved to an offsite location.
The initial copy to the S3 device took about 5 days to complete (about 50TB), and subsequent daily copy jobs takes about two hours. No big deal.

The source backup job (from Nutanix if that's of any relevance - I suspect it isn't) does weekly synthetic syncs to the primary storage (Windows), and I'm wondering how the copy job handles that. Will I need to re-copy the entire synthetic full to the off site S3 storage or will it only copy the regular incremental data?

/mikkel

[Mildur]

Hi Mikkel,

Backup Copy Jobs have their own backup chain, it’s not a 1:1 copy of the backup files from the primary backup chain.
Also, it’s good to know that backup or copy jobs do not provide the option to create synthetic full backups on object storage. This isn’t required given how we handle backups on object storage.
Object storage is always "forever incremental," unless you have configured regular active full copies.

To answer your question:

- With Active Full disabled in the copy job, the job will copy incremental data, regardless of what the source job has created.

Best,
Fabian

[mikkeland]

Hi,
Awesome - I suspected that was the case.

Much appreciated
MIkkel

[vitalii.fesh]

Object storage is always "forever incremental," unless you have configured regular active full copies.

What if we have a weekly GFS setup? Will it create a new chain with a Synthetic full?

[Mildur]

The backup session creates an incremental restore point and uploads it as new objects to the object storage. The restore point on object storage is then tagged as a weekly GFS restore point.

The backup server tracks all objects required for a restore from that weekly GFS restore point and retains this objects until the retention period (+ immutability period + block generation) is over.

Best,
Fabian