Backup copy help?

[briggs]

Hi there. One feature I was really looking forward to in v7, was the backup copy function. I understood that this would allow me to essentially export backups to a different media, and maintain a higher retention period?
So, as a very simple scenario, when I was previously retaining 30 restore points, of a once a day backup, with an active full once a month, I assumed the backup copy would let me retain say 60 or more restore points of the same backup, and it would copy off the data itself? Have I got this wrong? How do I set this up?

Many thanks, Alan

[Gostev]

Hi Alan, you are correct in your assumption.

Regarding setting up Backup Copy job, you will find the wizard to be most obvious. However, if something is not clear, kindly please refer to the User Guide, as it has most thorough step-by-step explanation (but honestly, you should not need to read this). I don't think it makes sense to repost the User Guide here as a forum post

Thanks!

[briggs]

I've tried it in the wizard, expecting it to be straightforward. But does this only work from the point of creating this job forward, or can it copy off existing restore points?
I'm looking through the manual, but I'm finding it a little confusing. Does it not copy the existing chains off to other storage, as is? Or does it merge restore points and fulls into single chains?

[briggs]

I may have just been impatient. The first time I tried this, I got an error and it failed. The second time I tried it, it said a restore point was corrupt or something. Then I fiddled around some more and tried reading the manual. In the mean time, it's kicked something off again by itself, I'll see what this gives me... It may of just needed a little more patience from me - oops!

[Gostev]

Once created, Backup Copy job will immediately start processing the latest existing restore point for all VMs included in the job.

[veremin]

Does it not copy the existing chains off to other storage, as is?

Actually, Veeam Backup Copy Job won’t copy backup files as the whole, instead, it will synthetically create required new restore points in remote location from VM data in source backup repositories. So, in other words, it’s not about Backup Copy job just copying backup files from source to target.

But does this only work from the point of creating this job forward, or can it copy off existing restore points?

During first run newly-created Backup Copy job won’t try to copy the whole existing backup chain, but rather it will create the first restore point — a full backup. From this point on, it is forever-incremental backup.

It seems that simple retention policy of backup copy job should answer all your requirements:

• Add different media to a backup console as a repository server
• Create a new backup copy job, specifying a given backup job as a source and the aforesaid repository as a target
• Go to the setting of newly-created backup copy job and set 60 as a number of restore points that should be kept by it

Thanks.

[briggs]

Thanks for clarifying, the documentation kind of did make sense when I read it back properly
I only asked initially to make sure I had the correct understanding of the feature, and I was confused initially because I got an error "Backup file xxxx2013-08-19T100000.vbk is corrupted or unreadable".
It seems to be doing something now though, so it really is very simple (so it seems anyway!)
Thanks again for being so quick to clarify things, love this forum!

[paulsexton]

Hi,

I am just testing some of the new features in Veeam 7, specifically the Backup copy feature and have a few questions:

1) From what i am seeing so far the job is only copying the incremental files, it isn't copying the original backup seed?

2) How does it treat copy jobs where the original backup job is based on a reverse incremental approach?

Thanks.

[veremin]

Hi, Paul. I think the post provided above should answer the questions you have. To sum up:

1) Backup copy job won’t copy backup files as the whole, instead, it will use its special logic to create required restore points at target location. So, it doesn’t matter what backup mode is being used.
2) After initial synchronization backup copy job is forever incremental.

Thanks.

[briggs]

I was also confused by this. Until I read the manual properly. It pretty much draws the picture for you, and so far, it seems to work...

[iamjimbo]

I just went to v7 and I'm reading the manual now to plan my new backup copy (GFS) strategy. There is one thing I'm not clear on, can you help me understand it? In the v7 Userguide for VMWare, the bottom of pg 113 says "Weekly Backups are always full backups" and some of the following pictures show what looks like more than one full backup. If I am setting up a GFS copy with 5 regulars (daily), 4 weeks, and 12 months do I need to have enough disk space for 17 full copies of my environment? That scares me a bit into thinking I can't use this feature. But this thread talks about 1 full and forever incrementals (which is what I was expecting). Can you clarify how many fulls (1, 2, or 17 seem to be the possibilities) will reside on my target backup copy repository at the end of a year (given a GFS 5,4,12 plan)? I'm guessing I'm just misunderstanding the manual, but I want to make sure...

Thanks,

Jim

[felipe.tenorio]

Hi Jim,

At the end of the year you would have up to 16 VBK files + 4 VIB files.
The picture would be something like that:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mnlawpn36a43y ... 20Copy.jpg


Once you reach next year schedule you would have up to 17 VBK files + 4 VIB files.

An option would be enabling Windows 2012 dedup at this volume. You can check more details here:
http://www.veeam.com/blog/how-to-get-un ... ation.html

Thanks.

[iamjimbo]

Hi Felipe,

Thanks for clarifying. That's dissappointing, though. So if my full environment backup is 3Tb, then to implement a GFS backup system I need a 51Tb+ target. That makes GFS out of reach for me still. Do other people have this same problem - do others not do GFS - or - do others have huge targets (17 x their environment) - or - am I doing something wrong in my thinking of how to accomplish GFS on a reasonable budget? Why can't it do 1 VBK and 17 VIB's?

Thanks,

Jim

P.S. My targets are relatively new Quantum NAS's, but have Storage Server 2008R2 Workgroup from the factory. I'm researching de-dup options available to it now.

[veremin]

Why can't it do 1 VBK and 17 VIB's?

Since the whole idea of GFS retention scheme is that you backup files should be completely independent on each other, i.e. full backups. Otherwise, the all files would be vulnerable to potential corruption issue. Assuming that some kind of failure happened during first week and you didn’t figure it out, it would be, then, copied to the whole yearly chain, leaving you without any reliable restore point. Thanks.