[Feature Request] Backup Jobs reporting improvements

[jprice@massbay.edu]

Veeam B&R Backup Jobs > Reporting for individual jobs only shows when the data is being backed up and how much data was backed up.

When the Backup Job or Backup Copy Job runs, if there are backup files that expire or fall outside of the jobs retention policy, they get deleted or removed from the system. No where can I find in a report when the backup job or copy job is actually deleting the data and is deleting the correct data.

If my GFS is set to 8 daily, 12 weekly, 36 months, 7 annual backups, no where in the individual backup job does it report the backup job is removing any backup file because it falls outside of the retention policy. A job run on Feb 8 could potentially be removing at least 1 daily backup job, or 1 weekly backup file or 1 monthly backup file or possibly even 1 annual backup file depending on when the backup jobs were created.


This seems like a very basic feature to show on the backup job or copy job.

[HannesK]

Hello,
while I see what you mean... what problem do you try to solve with that report?

Best regards
Hannes

[jprice@massbay.edu]

We are being audited and the auditors want to understand when backup data is being deleted and removed from online storage. Also, is the backup data being intentionally deleted by Veeam backup jobs or is data being randomly deleted by some outside agency not part of Veeam and now data is missing. For this latter point, if something deletes the backup data and Veeam indexes backup data to exist but when Veeam goes to delete the data, there is no error or alert to report expected data to be removed is missing.

The active backup jobs do not report when the backup data being deleted occurs at the time of when the backup job runs. In VeeamOne there is GFS Backup Files report but this only reports future occurrences on when backup data is being removed by retention policy. The actual report is future based reporting on when a file is expected to be removed; either next week, next month or even 11 months in the future. Nothing I can find in the system actually shows when the backup job runs and file deletion occurs.

There are two things, can an echo statement be added to the backup jobs/backup copy jobs to show when backup data is deleted and if Veeam expects to delete data and it cannot be found, can an alert be generated to say missing data?

[HannesK]

hmm, what regulation is the auditor working on? Because I cannot remember such requests from the past. If the retention is let's say 60 days, then old backups get deleted after 60days + the days to close the active chain if one is not using forever forward incremental. That should satisfy auditor needs. If I imagine (tens of) thousands of backup files, what is the auditor looking for to figure out which backup file was / will be deleted when?

If one wants to prevent against "random deletion", then immutability is the way to go. Having at least one immutable backup is a general recommendation.

If the information is really needed now for the auditor, then the fastest option would probably be to check the log files.