Backup to Tape only last backup with reversed incremental

[alynch]

For now I am using backup exec to work around this. Might consider dropping Veeam License if this does not get sorted out soon.

[sbbots]

Personally, I gave up on Veeam ever implementing a "latest VBK to tape" option for those of us who bought the Standard version. But hey, you get to learn some basic PowerShell scripting for free, so we got that going for us.

[veremin]

Since it's backup to tape job that operates with backup files, and not with general ones like files to tape job does, "the latest .vbk" option is planned for backup to tape jobs, indeed. Thanks.

[halnasser]

dear All;
Is there any way to create a backup to tape job to backup the last backup using Incremental Backup veeam jobs?
the following configuration were used: no tape protection at all & for the media set, all options were used as well.
my requirements are:
backing up the last vbk to tape every night, not the previous ones, do not care about tape protection at all, and have a full backup every day


I will quote from Mr. joergr
No luck so far. The first backup will always backup everything (config as "backups to tape"). if i do a backup afterwards after doing a reversed increment again it will fail asking for another tape (if set to create a new media set for every session) or it will just append to tape (if set to use current media set).



Any Advice ????


thanks a lot

[alynch]

This thread was created Aug 16, 2013!

Two years and still nothing...

''It just works'' ya right

[Shestakov]

Hello Haddel,
You can create backup job with Reverse Incremental backup method and use it as source for backup to tape job. Both jobs run daily. Choose to copy only the last chain when creating the tape job if don`t want previous backups to be copied.
As a result you will have 1 Full+preset number of increments(.vrb) on disk repository and full backup everyday on tapes.

This thread was created Aug 16, 2013!
Two years and still nothing...

Actually, there was some tape improvements made in v8 as a result of this feedback. For example, when creating Backup to Tape job, v8 will now ask you if you want to copy all - or only the latest full backup chain to tape. And for many other scenarios, multiple workarounds were suggested in the topic since 2013. Could you please describe your use case? Thanks!

[a32guy]

Hello Haddel,
You can create backup job with Reverse Incremental backup method and use it as source for backup to tape job. Both jobs run daily. Choose to copy only the last chain when creating the tape job if don`t want previous backups to be copied.
As a result you will have 1 Full+preset number of increments(.vrb) on disk repository and full backup everyday on tapes.

So if I were to schedule this tape job to run monthly, every month it would push 1 single (latest) vbk to tape? Is that correct?

[Shestakov]

For the case described above, correct.
Thanks!

[HolgerE]

I would like to add, that "push 1 single (latest) vbk to tape" only works if you never ever do an active full in the mean time (concerning the Reverse Incremental backup method described above)!
As soon as you run an active full, you've got the last backup from the day before active full (which is a vbk) and you've got your most current backup file (which is also a vbk). Both of the vbk have not been pushed to tape yet, so the next "Copy 2 Tape" job will copy both vbk.
The option "copy only the latest full backup chain to tape" is only available for the first run of the "Copy 2 Tape" job.

[Shestakov]

Thanks for the feedback, Holger!
We will definitely take it into account.

[garenk]

Been waiting for this feature since tape support was introduced in Veeam. Please make it happen.

[DRRP]

I'd just like to echo the desire for this functionality. We were expecting it to behave as Holger did, to have it copy only the latest vbk to tape, otherwise we'll end up running out of tapes to use (too many vbks from active full backups being copied over).

[squirrel]

I'd just like to also echo the desire for this functionality. I expected it to behave as Holger did as well. We need it to copy only the latest vbk to tape, otherwise it uses too many tapes.

[veremin]

Thank you for the feedback. We heard that request and as a first step in this area added option in version 8 to copy only the latest chain. Chances are, functionality to copy only the latest vbk will be added in one of the next product releases. Thanks.

[mike.r]

Yes, in Veeam 8 there is an option to "copy the latest chain".
But !! You only get one chance to set the option, when you add a new backup job to the list of jobs in tape backup.
Once you have set the option, you will never see it again. No check box , no mark, nothing.
And !! This option is only active for the first tape backup in the schedule. the next backup will copy all chains (created after the last tape backup) again.
Seems this option was implemented very quick and very dirty.

[Shestakov]

Mike, your description of the product behavior is correct.
As was mentioned above, we are working on the corresponding functionality to be added in the next product releases.
Thanks for the feedback!

[late]

Hi,

This probably has been asked earlier by someone else but let me do this once more. Currently we are running Forward Incrementals with Active Fulls on weekend. Then we have set Tape Jobs from Backups to save the fulls to tape. Tapes are changed every week and shipped offsite. The problem I am facing is that if there are more than one .VBK files in the repository for the VM in question then all the .VBK files are moved to tape. I would like only the latest full backup from the repository to be saved to tape. How can I achieve this?

Thanks!

[veremin]

There are several ways to achieve that. All of them are described in this thread and have some drawbacks.

Switch to reversed incremental and let a tap job copy only the latest point which is a full backup. Switch to forward forever incremental and let a tape job create a virtual full backup on desired basis. Leave everything as is, but use file to tape job, instead of backup to tape one, and put scripting into use. Within a script the latest full backup will be found and set as a source for a file to tape job.

Thanks.

[late]

Thank you Vladimir!

According to earlier posts in this thread this function will be added to next releases. So it would be included in v9 am I correct?

[veremin]

According to the plan, it should be added in version 9, right. Thanks.

[omitv]

I've tried joergr's script in v8 update2 but I receive following errors

Code: Select all

          Welcome to the Veeam Backup and Replication PowerShell Toolkit!

To list available commands, type Get-VBRCommand
To list available plugins, type Get-VBRPlugin
To open online documentation on all available commands, type Get-VBRToolkitDocumentation

       Copyright © Veeam Software AG. All rights reserved.


PS C:\Users\Bentsa> s:
PS S:\> cd .\Scripts
PS S:\Scripts> powershell.exe .\LatestFullToTape.ps1
dd-pssnapin : The term 'dd-pssnapin' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable
program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At S:\Scripts\LatestFullToTape.ps1:1 char:1
+ dd-pssnapin veeampssnapin
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (dd-pssnapin:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Hardlink created for S:\Backups\veeam-hardlinks\Production VMs2015-09-06T220046.vbk <<===>> S:\Backups\Production VMs\Pr
oduction VMs2015-09-06T220046.vbk
## hardlinks ##
S:\Backups\veeam-hardlinks\
Start-VBRJob : The term 'Start-VBRJob' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable
program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At S:\Scripts\LatestFullToTape.ps1:25 char:1
+ Start-VBRJob -Job "LatestFullToTape" -FullBackup
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (Start-VBRJob:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

PS S:\Scripts>

[veremin]

Seems that you've removed unintentionally one letter from the name of commandlet, thus, the issues. Please, replace dd-pssnapin with Add-PSSnapin. Thanks.

[mike.r]

Is there a release date for Version 9, or a detailed feature list ?

[Shestakov]

New features are announced in the Veeam Blog.
No exact release date yet, should be in Q4. Thanks!

[skrause]

Hello,

We have a retention policy that requires having one monthly full copy of our backups on tape and stored at an off-site cold storage facility. We had set up tape jobs in August to run on the first weekend of the month and at the time of creation, were asked to choose if we wanted all of the chains or just the most recent sent to tape on the first run of the job.

When the jobs ran this weekend, they copied all of the fulls which we did not want as we only wanted the most recent full.

I realize now that the jobs work like Backup Copy jobs where they grab anything new since the last job run. Would it be possible to add an option to allow us to just process the most recent chain on subsequent runs of the job (or better yet, is this part of the new GFS support in 9 )?

We can make do for now with re-creating the jobs every month but just having it run automatically would make our lives much easier.

Thanks.

[Dima P.]

Hey Steve,
Thanks for the feedback – we got this feature in the list of upcoming improvements for the next major release. Stay tuned for updates!

[A.G.]

Hi, community!
I faced the same problem when backing data off site. I began to search workaround, but there was nothing useful.
We are using forward incremental backups with Synthetic Full every weekend and Active Full every first weekend.
And now I have two cmd with PoSh inside. First starts before Backup-To-Tape job, and the other starts after job completes.
Here they are:
create_last_full_hardlink.ps1

Code: Select all

function New-HardLink
{
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
        $OriginalFilePath,
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
        $MirroredFilePath
    )

    $signature = '
            [DllImport("Kernel32.dll")]
            public static extern bool CreateHardLink(string lpFileName,string lpExistingFileName,IntPtr lpSecurityAttributes);
    '
    Add-Type -MemberDefinition $signature -Name Creator -Namespace Link 
    [Link.Creator]::CreateHardLink($MirroredFilePath,$OriginalFilePath,[IntPtr]::Zero)
} 

$Source = (gci "E:\BackUp_Repository\Full_BackUp" -Filter "*.vbk" | sort "LastWriteTime" -Descending)[0]
$Destination = "E:\Virtual_BackUp_Repository\Full_BackUp\$($Source.Name)"
New-HardLink -OriginalFilePath $Source.FullName -MirroredFilePath $Destination
Start-Sleep 10

Add-PSSnapin veeampssnapin
Import-VBRBackup -Server "This server" -FileName $Destination
$BackupName = "Full_BackUp_imported"
$Backup = Get-VBRBackup -Name $BackupName
$Job = Get-VBRJob -Name "$BackupName"
$Backup.Update($Job)

Default repository is located at E:\BackUp_Repository. Default job is "Full_BackUp"
I've created Virtual Repository in "E:\Virtual_BackUp_Repository", then made a copy of backup job and named it "Full_BackUp_imported". This job stores data in virtual repository and will never be started.

The script searches for the most recent vbk file in the job folder and creates a hardlink for it in virtual repository (using function).
After hardlink created I import vbk file from virtual repository into Veeam B&R. I get new backup with name "Full_BackUp_imported". Then I update impoted backup with backup job (they have the same names).

Then job starts backing up hardlinked vbk file from virtual repository to tape drive (Resource Monitor shows that file is read from original location).
After backup completes another script executes
clear_last_full_hardlink_folder.ps1

Code: Select all

Add-PSSnapin veeampssnapin
$BackupName = "Full_BackUp_imported"
Remove-VBRBackup -Backup $BackupName -Confirm:$false

$Destination = "E:\Virtual_BackUp_Repository\Full_BackUp\*.*"
rd -Path $Destination -Force

I delete imported job from Veeam B&R and clear virtual repository.

Cmd files contain one string like
powershell -file PowerShell_script_file

[dan11]

The workaround with hardlinks mentioned in this thread has some downsides which forced me to find a better solution. (which works very well for me).
I realized that I`m losing a lot of nice features in the restore process. It makes the restore from tape process way more complicated and involves more steps. Also the individual VMs aren't in the Veeam catalog anymore. (for example, enterprise manager can’t help you to find guest files from backups on tape…)
And you have no access to backup on Tape in restore wizard.

Here is what I’m doing right now:

- reversed incremental with active full once a month (Saturday evening).
- weekly backup to tape latest full (Saturday morning)

The trick is to do the active fulls after the backup to tape job on the same day. If you do it this way, the old Full backup is not changing anymore and is already on tape. So, the next weekend, you have two fulls in repository, but one is already on tape. Veeam backs up only the latest to tape.

There is only one point: If the backup to Tape job fails, you run in to the same old problem one week later (two full backups…) to solve this problem I use a Powershell script, which checks if the backup to tape job was successful or not. If not, it disables the active full options for all backup jobs and send me an email. The next day, another script enables the active full option for the next month...

[alando]

Any news on this topic? Will this soon be implemented?

[Shestakov]

As was said above, it`s to be implemented in the upcoming major version, v9.