Grandfather/Father/Son questons

[rogerdu]

I find the manual to be slightly less than optimal when explaining the GFS rotation scheme, so thought to as some questons here before messing with my production system (I don't have a lab setup )

End Goal:
What I'd like to do in the end is the following:

• Monthly full backup retained for 13 months
• Weekly full backup retained for 5 weeks
• Daily incremental backups retained for 2 weeks

Currently all these are being stored on disk. The end goal would be to use a copy job to move the Monthly and Yearly jobs off to tape (technical problems with the tape unit right now... stupid multi-LUN tape systems)


Questions/Confirmation points:

From what I've been able to read here in the forums, the GFS scheme is a seperate set of restore points for each full retention cycle (Weekly, Monthly, Yearly) or can the Weekly full be integrated with the Daily Incremental/Synthetic full cycle?

Would I need to define a seperate cycle for the 13 monthly backups, and would they have their own set of deduplication images (over the 13 copies)... I know 2 questions in one

Can I run a job yearly to do a copy of the last backup in December to tape to create an infinite restore point for a yearly backup (well 7 years at any rate)?

Thanks in advance for your patience... I've set this kind of retention cycle up many times before iusing other products, and I know Veeam can do it... just not sure how...

Roger

[Dima P.]

Roger,
Could you please clarify, if you want to maintain GFS rotation thru the backup copy job or run regular backup to disk and then maintain GFS retention for tape media? Thank you.

[rogerdu]

I want to maintain everything on Disk right now, and eventually I will setup a yearly copy job to move the December Monthly backup to tape. As I am unable to access the tape device from a VMware VM at this time, I have to get another solution before I can do the tape part.

[Dima P.]

Roger,
Got it, thank you for pointing this out!

From what I've been able to read here in the forums, the GFS scheme is a seperate set of restore points for each full retention cycle (Weekly, Monthly, Yearly) or can the Weekly full be integrated with the Daily Incremental/Synthetic full cycle?

Since daily set retention is short - yes.

Would I need to define a separate cycle for the 13 monthly backups, and would they have their own set of deduplication images (over the 13 copies)... I know 2 questions in one

It’s up to you, but classic GFS includes: “Daily cycle” with 7 days retention, “Weekly cycle” with 4 weeks retention period (it will hold last full backup of each week for a month) and “Monthly cycle” 12 months retention (it will hold last full backup of month for a year). However, you can adjust the classic schema according to your requirements or policies.

Can I run a job yearly to do a copy of the last backup in December to tape to create an infinite restore point for a yearly backup (well 7 years at any rate)?

Yes - just specify long retention for tape media in the Media Pool > Media set creation options.

[rogerdu]

It’s up to you, but classic GFS includes: “Daily cycle” with 7 days retention, “Weekly cycle” with 4 weeks retention period (it will hold last full backup of each week for a month) and “Monthly cycle” 12 months retention (it will hold last full backup of month for a year). However, you can adjust the classic schema according to your requirements or policies.

I understand the Daily backup with synthetic fulls on Saturdays as this is what we are doing now. To create a schedule with 5 Weekly backups and another with 13 monthly backups, would this be a matter of 3 policies for each group of clients?

• Daily Incremental backup, 14 restore points, (Yes or no to Synthetid full?)
• Weekly backup, 5 restore points
• Monthly backup, 13 restore points

[foggy]

You can either set up several regular backup jobs (one per each retention period) or set up a single backup copy job and specify GFS settings appropriately.

[rogerdu]

Can I assume that if our current synthetics consume about 1TByte of space, that each full image will consume the same? (so I would need an additional 13 + 5 TB of space to house the additional weekly and monthly full backups)

[foggy]

Correct.

[rogerdu]

Last question (for now )... do we need the synthetic full backups if we are going to a copy job that creates fulls every saturday? (that will save us some space as they age out....)

Thanks for all your help so far

[Dima P.]

Roger,
In most scenarios one full backup during week is ok, but if you find it necessary - you can set additional synthetic full somewhere in the middle of the week.

[foggy]

Here's a good topic on recommended full backup frequency, worth reviewing.