More Questions on Backup - Retention and Archive

[sjmp]

Veeam newbie here.

Veeam 7.0.0.771

We are in a litigation hold - with no end date in sight. We need to keep Email and Data eternally.

Currently I have three backups running

Production - Daily 60 Days retention (Production backups)
Replication - Daily 14 Days retention (for DR separate strategy)
Backup Copy - Daily (not sure on retention) (For offsite copy of production backups?)

When I review the GFS strategy I am not clear on how Deleted data ( data deleted from production, but still required to be recorded in backup/archive for litigation hold purposes) is handled. If I run a monlthy, quarterly, yearly full - I would lose data that has been deleted from production. I am not sure if I run a monthly restore point for archiving (in backup copy) I know it will create a full backup copy and put aside - but i need to keep all the changes that occurred during the month itself. Not just a rolled up full.

Can some of the Veeam guru's/vets give me some suggestions on an approach that is sustainable?

a few questions -
1) Is a backup copy literally a copy of the production job? So if my production job runs daily, the backup copy will run right after?
2) Not clear on how the scheduling works for backup copy - In my production job I can specify a secondary destination - and point to the backup copy job. But within the backup copy job itself it asks "copy every"... 1 day, 2 days.... If you map the production job to the backup copy does that override (or become) the backup copy schedule?

[veremin]

Hi, Scott,

Can some of the Veeam guru's/vets give me some suggestions on an approach that is sustainable?

Additional offsite backup job will, probably, work best in case of really long continuous backup chain, since the maximum value of restore points backup copy job can keep in case of simple retention period is 99.

1) Is a backup copy literally a copy of the production job?

Backup copy job doesn’t copy backup files as the whole, instead, it synthetically creates required restore points in "target" location from VM data in source backup repositories.

So if my production job runs daily, the backup copy will run right after?

It depends on "Copy Every" interval you've specified.

2) Not clear on how the scheduling works for backup copy - In my production job I can specify a secondary destination - and point to the backup copy job. But within the backup copy job itself it asks "copy every"... 1 day, 2 days....

Backup copy job is a continuous job that works in accordance with the specified synchronization interval (time window during which backup copy job must copy VM restore point from source to target location). More information regarding this matter can be found in the corresponding section of our Help Center.

If you map the production job to the backup copy does that override (or become) the backup copy schedule?

No, it doesn't.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[sjmp]

Thanks for the reply

still not clear on the difference between BackupCopy - Copy Every 1 day starting at 12am. VS BackupJob - configure secondary destination for this job -

Since BackupCopy creates its instances from the BackupJob - And if you select configure secondary destination the only option is my backup copy job. So if I select secondary destination (and it is my backup copy job) then what is the use of the schedule (copy every day...) in the backupcopy job settings?

If backupjob keeps 60 restore points and backupcopy keeps 99 how does it work when the backupjob runs a full after the restore points have been met? but backupCopy has not met itrs retention policy... what would the backupCopy restore point 61 be?

Thank you

[veremin]

still not clear on the difference between BackupCopy - Copy Every 1 day starting at 12am. VS BackupJob - configure secondary destination for this job

There is no difference - configure secondary location is just a convenient way of selecting either backup copy or backup to tape job.

So if I select secondary destination (and it is my backup copy job) then what is the use of the schedule (copy every day...) in the backupcopy job settings?

It relates to how frequently backup copy job should create restore point. For instance, if you select "Copy every 7 days", there will be only one restore point created by backup copy job per week.

If you haven't done it yet, I still recommend reviewing referenced section of our Help Center, since it clarifies these questions in detailed manner.

Thanks.

[sjmp]

Thanks again for the reply.

For my production backups
- currently running reversed incremental w/ 60 restore points to keep on disk. If I want to keep all of these restore points. How do I tell veeam to just run a new full and start the chain new - while leaving the previous full + 60 restore points - alone and intact? Start a whole new chain without losing any restore points. - Synthetic Full? I could do a Synthetic Full and transform (vib to vrb) but at some point the chain would be unruly. So I still have to start anew -

It might be more manageable to run Synthetic full after 30 days to move the full up and then let it run another thirty - but I still have to keep the old data. Still not sure what the best strategy is.

- how could I automate the previous set (full + 60 restore points) to be archived to another location?

Also - is there a way to do the above - and keep dedup applicable across the different sets?



thanks again!

[veremin]

You can disable the job that contains 60 restore points and create a new one. If you want to, you can move the corresponding files to target location.

Thanks.

[foggy]

- how could I automate the previous set (full + 60 restore points) to be archived to another location?

You could schedule a script to do that.

Also - is there a way to do the above - and keep dedup applicable across the different sets?

No, Veeam inline deduplication is performed within a job.

[sjmp]

Thanks - can you point me in the direction of how to run a script -

1. to disable a job ones it reaches it maximum restore points.
2. create a new instance of the same job to start a new set
3. move the data to an archiving location

Thanks -

[veremin]

Surely, it can be automated, but can you shed a light on why you need such a deployment? Wouldn't it better to configure your retention policy in accordance to your needs or use backup copy job for long-term archival purposes? Thanks.