[New to Veeam] Backup last 4 Weeks on Tape

[Novae]

Hi,

i would like to implement Veeam Backup Essentials 8 with Hyper-V in our company.
But i have some questions before that

I would like to make a monthly Backup to Tape.
But it should not have only a Fullbackup from the backup day.
I would like to have the full time between the bandexchanges on a Tape.

Which options to do that, does Veeam Backup/Replication offer?
That should be Fullbackup + incremental?
Or are there some Veeam specific features that will fullfill my request way better than that?

It would be perfect whe i could tell Veeam do a full backup after the LTO6 Tape has been changed and after that do incremetal backups.
Is that possible?

Thanks and best regards
Novae

[PTide]

Hi,

So, basically, you want to make full at the beginning of each new tape with subsequent incrementals until another tape is inserted, correct?

[Novae]

So, basically, you want to make full at the beginning of each new tape with subsequent incrementals until another tape is inserted, correct?

Yes, that would be the easiest solution

(hmm there is no edit funktion for the first post o.O omg... i got there are so much typos.... i'm sry for that -.-")

[PTide]

May I ask you, what VB&R edition are you going to use? I mean is it Standard, Enterprise, or Enterprise+ ? Also please give some more details about your backup requirements so I can better understand what are you trying to accomplish. (more specifically, disk/tape retention, backup mode you're planning to use, etc.)

Thank you.

[Novae]

I would like to use Veeam Backup Essentials Enterprise.

We have planned to install 2 Hosts with HyperV
on each Host are 2 Guests with Replication to the other host et vice versa

| __HOST1__ | __HOST2__ |
| VM1 Online | VM1Offline |
| VM2 Online | VM2Offline |
| VM3 Offline | VM3Online |
| VM4 Offline | VM4Online |

VM1 ADServer
VM2 Exchange
VM3 ERP System with own Backupsystem (~2gb File into a Share offsite and a Physical Backupserver)
VM4 Fileserver for the ERP

All Based on w2012r2 except the ERP, it's based on CentOS

Maximum HDD Space for each host ist 2,7 GB (but i think the first 2 Years are 1TB used space realistic)
I would like to archive one of the Hosts (2 Sockets, with one CPU (6C) installed) to a LTO6 Tape
(uncompressed 2,6GB, compressed ~6TB so it should last until there is a new LTO7 Standard with even more space ; )

I think i just should clarfiy that i don't want to make the Backup on Tape!
I would like to archiv the last 10 years of data on tape. so i would like to take one Month per tape.
Replace the Tape Monthly with a new tape and the old one goes into a safe place out of company

For the Backup i would like to Use 4 USB HDDs (a' 3 TB) in a weekly rotation (7 days dataloss in case of a full emergency is acceptable)
So, that are the actual plan..

I hope it's understandable.

[PTide]

Hi,

Please review one of several possible scenarios:

1. Backup To Tape Job will pull to tape everything what is present on a USB drive when started.

2. You are going to have 4 USB drives in rotation, which means that after a month of preforming daily incrementals you will have 1st week full + 6 incrementals on the 1st drive, 2nd week full + 6 incrementals on the second drive etc. That is how rotated media repository works - in case full backup not found it creates a new backup chain.

3. In order to meet the "one month per tape" requirement the Backup To Tape job has to be started once a month, which means that it will pull one full backup (the one that is present on a currently inserted USB drive) + all incrementals (from the same drive).

Is that what you want?

Thank you.

[Novae]

Hi, thanks for your reply and time

Nr. 1 sry i don't unterstand when i should run that?
Nr. 2 is what i want to do for the Backup, but not for the monthly archiv
Nr. 3 will miss the other 3 USB Drives

But i need some archivment for all files, daily.

3. In order to meet the "one month per tape" requirement the Backup To Tape job has to be started once a month, which means that it will pull one full backup (the one that is present on a currently inserted USB drive) + all incrementals (from the same drive).

But that would be only the files frome this one day. i need all other files too until the next fullbackup.

1. Insert first tape
2. Fullbackup
3. Incrementel
4. Incrementel
[..~28 days later..]
5. Incrementel
6. Eject tape and put it in safe, insert new tape, goto 2.

I would like to have step 2 to 5 automated
As a secondary Task run the backup on USB Drive.
i tried to explain it on another way:

I would like to run 2 Tasks daily from the Server

Code: Select all

Task 1
run (Archiv)
 if Fullbackup on Tape do (incremetel backup to Tape) 
else 
 run (fullbackup to tape)

Code: Select all

Task 2:
run (Backup)
 if Fullbackup on USBDrive AND it's not older than 7 Days run (inkrementel backup to USB Disk)
else 
 run (fullbackup to USB Drive and Override old backup)

(Sry, maybe my english is not good enough to explain -.-")

[PTide]

If you use rotated usb media there will be four full backup files (one per disk), which means four separate backup chains (1 full + 6 incrementals each) that cannot be merged together. So, for example, assuming your fulls are being created on Mondays, if you want to restore your 1st Sunday then you use your 1st Full + 6 incrementals for that full. If you want to restore you 3rd Thursday then you use your 3rd Full + 3 incrementals.

If you want to archive only 1 Full + 28 incrementals to a single Tape on a daily basis, then you'll have to have a repository that sits still without a rotation for at least one month so it can accumulate all 28 incrementals in one chain. The other option would be to stay with 4 usb drives and a Backup To Tape Job which will result in 4 fulls on a tape with 6 incrementals inbetween them:

F - i - i - i - i - i - i - F - . . . - F - i -. . . . - i - F

[Novae]

aaah, i think i know where the "problem" is...
does veeam work over the archiv bit?

that would explain why i can't run 2 different jobs on the same server with different targets

[PTide]

i can't run 2 different jobs on the same server with different targets

Sorry, I'm not sure I understood what you mean. Could you please elaborate?

[Novae]

like i wrote above.

I Want to have 2 different tasks as Backup and Archiv functions

I would like to run 2 Tasks daily from the Server

Code: Select all

Task 1
run (Archiv)
 if Fullbackup on Tape do (incremetel backup to Tape) 
else 
 run (fullbackup to tape)

Code: Select all

Task 2:
run (Backup)
 if Fullbackup on USBDrive AND it's not older than 7 Days run (inkrementel backup to USB Disk)
else 
 run (fullbackup to USB Drive and Override old backup)

[PTide]

Ok, now I see. It's not about an archive bit... In order to archive your backup to tape you need to point your Backup To Tape Job to existing backups. Archive Job cannot create backups from nowhere - it takes them from other jobs. Backup chain produced by VBR is not just a bunch of files - consider it as an internally dependent linked list. Please see this illustration of how chain functions and this article on how rotated media repository works.

P.S.The articles apply both to vmware and hyper-v

[Novae]

Archive Job cannot create backups from nowhere - it takes them from other jobs.

Ah, ok then my mistake was that i thought i can directly backup a System to Tape?

So i must "cache" the backups to another disc before i put the whole month to a tape?
Is that correct?

[PTide]

Morning,

Ah, ok then my mistake was that i thought i can directly backup a System to Tape?

Correct.

So i must "cache" the backups to another disc before i put the whole month to a tape? Is that correct?

Well, it's not "caching" but in general terms you are correct - backup files have to exist in order to be taken to tape, tape job itself does not produce anything - it just manages the way your tapes are rotated/erased/exported/etc. The other option would be to copy incrementals one by one every day but you'll still need a job that produces those incrementals in a form of a single chain, which is not possible in case you have 4 rotated USB drives. Could you please tell me - what is the reason for using 4 USB drives? Maybe I could recommend you something else?

Thank you.

[Novae]

hi, thank you for clarify the/my problem with the Tapes

The USB drives are needed to have every week one Fullbackup which is not older than 7 Days.

2 drives are necessary to have one on the server and one out of office in case of disaster.
4 drives are used to expand the time of available backups to four weeks.
A maximum of one week old data, out of office, is acceptable by the business.

thats the intention to use 4 USB drives

[PTide]

2 drives are necessary to have one on the server and one out of office in case of disaster.
4 drives are used to expand the time of available backups to four weeks.
A maximum of one week old data, out of office, is acceptable by the business.

Do you have enough space on your server to hold 1 Full + 28 incrementals (aside from USBs) ? The idea is to keep 1 Full + 28 daily incremental backups right on your server and utilize a backup copy job, that will copy your incrementals to some remote machine (either linux or windows) fast and wisely, so that you will have an independent backup chain outside of the office. Sounds good?

P.S. USB drives are woefully slow, which causes problems with performance during backups.

[Novae]

Do you have enough space on your server to hold 1 Full + 28 incrementals (aside from USBs) ? The idea is to keep 1 Full + 28 daily incremental backups right on your server and utilize a backup copy job, that will copy your incrementals to some remote machine (either linux or windows) fast and wisely, so that you will have an independent backup chain outside of the office. Sounds good?

i dont think that the server will have enough space for that. i need to think about that.
Maybe a NAS would be an option to save the backups until the D2T job are started?

P.S. USB drives are woefully slow, which causes problems with performance during backups.

Thats why i want to use USB 3.0 and run the fullbackup on the Weekend so i think the perfomanceproblems should not be an impact to the business.

[PTide]

Maybe a NAS would be an option to save the backups until the D2T job are started?

You can save backups to any repository available, the options are:

▪Microsoft Windows server with a local or directly attached storage
▪Linux server with local, directly attached or mounted NFS storage
▪Shared CIFS (SMB) folder
▪Deduplicating storage appliance: EMC Data Domain, ExaGrid and HP StoreOnce