Changing to GFS tape from regular pools

[TaylorB]

I'm a little bit confused as to how to best set up new GFS jobs to replace the regular tape jobs and pools that have been running for years.

Right now, I have a mix of a dozen or more Veeam jobs backing up various sets of VMs. Most daily, some weekly, a few even monthly only. Right now, I have a regular tape job for each Veeam job. It is scheduled to start the tape job right after the backup job finishes. And then I have to have extra complicated setup of jobs to get my monthly and annual points. So I am looking to GFS to simplify this.

I have made a new GFS pool and went to make a new GFS job for one or two of my Veeam backup jobs. But the scheduling is very different. It looks like it just wants to run continually and watch for new backups each night. So I can't really tell it to run in a chain with the backup jobs. Looking at how it runs, would I be better off making one big GFS tape job that handles all my Veeam backups? Or would I still want them segmented like I am doing today? Can I point multiple tape jobs at the same GFS pool?

I will have to start all my new backup chains, so probably best to run it the first time on a Friday or Saturday to catch the new full backups.

Any tips on how to move from my 13 regular tape jobs to a more streamlined GFS job?

[david.domask]

Hi TaylorB,

Your understanding is correct, with GFS media pools the tape job will start scanning at the time you define in the schedule settings and look for restore points that best meet the GFS period requirements. Tape GFS creates archives based on the GFS schedule you set, i.e., if you configure the GFS Tape job to create a monthly GFS point on the first of every month, on the 1st of every month it will search the existing restore points for the added jobs for the restore point that is the best candidate for the GFS time period.

> I will have to start all my new backup chains, so probably best to run it the first time on a Friday or Saturday to catch the new full backups.

Not necessary, for elder media sets (weekly - yearly), Tape GFS will always place a full backup on tape -- if the best candidate for the GFS period found is a full backup, the full backup will be copied to tape. If the candidate found is an incremental point, the tape GFS job will create a Virtual Full backup directly on tape. (no additional repository space needed)

So you don't really need to worry about timing the primary and tape jobs, just configure your desired GFS period for the GFS media pool, and the tape job will ensure you get the GFS points on tape as you configured.

> Looking at how it runs, would I be better off making one big GFS tape job that handles all my Veeam backups? Or would I still want them segmented like I am doing today?

Dealer's choice, it's largely preference based on what is easier for you to manage / monitor

> Can I point multiple tape jobs at the same GFS pool?

Yes.