Question about yearly backups

[dimaslan]

I have a question about GFS with Veeam. I created a copy job with a setting of 31 daily, 12 monthly and 10 yearly with the yearly set to be the September full.
Issue was that the job did not run on September after all and so the old backups were gone. Now the oldest full I have is the 12th monthly backup (started on 2024).
I changed the yearly setting on that copy job to be the one of February instead of September, however the job has run but I don't see the February full marked as Yearly.
Is there another way to do this?

[vnikiforov]

Hello,

According to the User Guide, when you select the current month for the yearly GFS cycle and the first day of that month has already passed, the restore point will not be marked as "yearly".

I believe that might be the case, and changes were made in February. In that case, reschedule it for March, and the yearly flag should be applied after the backup copy job runs.

The behavior documented at https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/u ... 2C%20Veeam

[dimaslan]

I had changed to February and ran it but it still did not change. I did it again now for March and ran it again but it still has not added the yearly flag.

[dimaslan]

Just need to mention I have Veeam 12.3.2.4165, not V13.

[dimaslan]

So the full monthly of Feb 2025 is still there.

According to the user guide:

===================================================================
Veeam Backup & Replication creates yearly full backups according to a schedule that depends on whether the monthly cycle is enabled or disabled:

NOTE: If monthly backups are enabled, Veeam Backup & Replication uses the monthly backup schedule and adds a yearly flag to the monthly backup.


If monthly backups are disabled, Veeam Backup & Replication creates yearly full backups on the first day of the selected month.

If the first day of the current month has already passed and you select the current month for the yearly full backup cycle, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a yearly full backup even if it is not the first day of the current month.

If you enable the yearly GFS cycle and select the month that has already passed, Veeam Backup & Replication will create a yearly full backup only in the next year. Yearly full backup for the current year will not be created.
==================================================================

My monthly and full backups were enabled so per the guide changing the month for the Full should mark it with the Yearly flag but I don't see it working. I also tested setting March for some but again it did not work.

[vnikiforov]

Hello, Dimitris,

The scenario I had in mind is slightly different. Schedule the job to run in March (setting it for March 2nd for example, should work well) and then wait. Do now run it manually. After the March run check whether the resulting backup is marked as yearly. If it is still not flagged as expected after that run, this would point to unexpected behavior. In that case, please open a support case and provide the relevant details so the team can investigate why the yearly mark is not being applied.

[dimaslan]

I see.

In that case, should I leave February as the setting for Yearly? What I am seeing in the manual seems to suggest if monthlies were enabled and the month is not over, it should be able to mark that one as the yearly. However, that date of the last Monthly was the 23rd and the manual says if the month has 28 days, which was the case for last February, it will keep the monthly of the 22nd.
I did increase the setting for the monthlies from 12 to 24 a few days ago to make sure those oldest monthlies will be kept at least for more time but I am worried I might lose those.
I think I will need to find some additional storage and copy those over for safe keeping.

[vnikiforov]

Hello, Dimitris,

May I please ask you to share all the scheduling settings for the job, including GFS, and when it was run last time for the monthly backup (date time), as you've changed it to February? Just to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.