Removal of Backup Copy restore points

[darryl]

When life hands you lemons…

We have a situation where a solution has been architected for us using a HP StoreOnce for long term retention (tape replacement). We still use fast disk as our primary backup storage.

The issue is that the StoreOnce is not good at performing backup copy merge operations. So we can’t have any of those.

Our go-forward strategy is to:
- Create a backup copy job with a large number of daily restore points (we’ll never let it go that far).
- At the end of the month, disable the job, and create a new backup copy job.
- At the end of the next month, disable the previous job, and create another new backup copy job. But also delete all the VIBs from the (now) two month old backup copy job, leaving only a monthly restore point.
- Repeat.
- Once a backup copy job is a year old (disabled for 11 months), delete it altogether.

I have a viability question – is it possible to delete restore points (ex: all the VIBs after the VBK) from a backup copy job using Remove-VBRRestorePoint? Will this also remove a record of these from the database? When I go to do a restore, I don’t want to be offered those restore points that I’ve cleaned out. I only want to be offered the one restore point from that month that is still on disk, the original VBK.

[veremin]

Just a quick question - wouldn't it be easier to create additional backup job with monthly schedule and make it create only active full backups on given device?

[darryl]

Just a quick question - wouldn't it be easier to create additional backup job with monthly schedule and make it create only active full backups on given device?

In a way it would.

However, that would require reading (again) from the primary storage, instead of our intermediate (fast) backup to disk. I would need to do two backups from primary storage, one to my intermediate disk, and one to my dedupe appliance. The dedupe appliance does have short term restore points as well, as it replicates itself to a DR site.

And I think I would still need to delete restore points, to maintain only monthly restore points after a month or two has passed.

[veremin]

With monthly schedule that job won't have to create incremental points, just full ones, so there won't be any need to delete some points whatsoever.

Anyway, it's a trade-off, and it's up to you to choose whatever approach you like most.

The described steps can be scripted for sure. Though, you'd better delete restore points, using ordinary Windows PS commands, like Remove-Item, because, as far as I remember, Remove-VBRRestorePoint will delete .vbk along with dependent .vibs.

Required commandlets include: Add-VBRViBackupCopyJob, Get-VBRJob ,Disable-VBRJob, etc.

Thanks.

[champ_]

Hi,

Is there any good practice when I want to delete the latest backup copy restore point? Can I just delete the the files from the repository and do a rescan?

Regards

Roger

[Shestakov]

Hi Roger,
If you delete the restore point manually from the repository, you need to edit metadata as well, since it will be retained there and it`s not a recommended approach.
The feature is built-in in upcoming v9 release.
Thanks!

[veremin]

By the way, what's the reason why you have to delete the latest restore point? May be the issue can be bypassed differently?

[champ_]

Accidentaly enabled a backup copy job that should'nt be enabled. The last restore point filled the disk and I would now like to remove it. Any best practices here or should i contact Veeam support?

[veremin]

Since the deletion requires metadata correction, you'd better contact support team. Thanks.