Best way to create a .vbk daily and copy it to tape?

[conradblack]

Hello,

I have veeam running in production currently, and I'm looking forward to using it to also backup to tape.

One of the requirements I have is that I want to copy a full backup file (.vbk) to tape to be sent off-site daily. I know there are a number of ways to create a .vbk file such as using reverse incremental or forward incremental with synthetic/active fulls.

Are there any other ways that I'm missing to do this? I'm running forward incremental with synthetic fulls on Saturday currently, and I like this setup for disk backups. However, I'm in need of a full backup copied to tape every single day.

Is there a way to use backup to tape jobs to transform my incremental chain into a .vbk without modifying the regular disk backups?

Thank you.

[Shestakov]

Hello,
The best solution for you is to switch the source job to the reversed incremental backup method, thereby your latest restore point is always a full backup and you can just copy it to tape daily.
You can also create Synthetic Fulls daily with rollbacks, but in fact it will be the same as Reversed Increments.
Thanks!

[veremin]

Also, if your source job is using forward forever incremental mode, you can let backup to tape job create virtual full backup directly on tapes on everyday basis. All you need to do is to schedule virtual full backup to take place daily. Thanks.

[conradblack]

Also, if your source job is using forward forever incremental mode, you can let backup to tape job create virtual full backup directly on tapes on everyday basis. All you need to do is to schedule virtual full backup to take place daily. Thanks.

What if my source job is using forward incremental with synthetic fulls once a week? What if I want to run active or synthetic fulls for my jobs that backup to disk? With this model I would only get new full backups to disk when my retention policy expires and a new chain of increments is created, correct?

[Shestakov]

What if my source job is using forward incremental with synthetic fulls once a week?

During the week you will have not fulls, but increments on the tape.

Also, how do i perform virtual full backups? Is this done on the tape job level?

The virtual full backup is scheduled in the tape job properties and runs independently of the source backup jobs. More info is here.
Thanks!

[veremin]

What if my source job is using forward incremental with synthetic fulls once a week?

Disable synthetic full backup, that will automatically switch your job to forward forever incremental mode.

What if I want to run active or synthetic fulls for my jobs that backup to disk?

You can still do it manually or via scheduled PS script. Though, with forward forever incremental mode the need for periodic is not that strong.

Withthis model I would only get new full backups to disk when my retention policy expires and a new chain of increments is created, correct?

Yep, only the oldest point is stored as a full backup.

Also, how do i perform virtual full backups? Is this done on the tape job level?

Correct.

Thanks.

[conradblack]

Cool, that's pretty awesome. So if I run an active full via GUI or scheduled PS script will this active full be independent of my chain of increments? And will it stay on disk until I specify when I want to delete it?

What I'm asking is if this active full is "outside" of my retention policy. What are the mechanics behind a manual active full?

Thank you for all the help

[veremin]

What I'm asking is if this active full is "outside" of my retention policy.

No, it's subject to retention policy. Though, it doesn't count as periodic full backup from backup to tape job perspective, so, it still can create virtual full backup directly on tapes.

[conradblack]

No, it's subject to retention policy. Though, it doesn't count as periodic full backup from backup to tape job perspective, so, it still can create virtual full backup directly on tapes.

Thanks so much, that sounds good.

One more question... will the active full affect the regular chain of increments?

Let's say I have a 14 restore point retention policy. If I run the first full backup on Monday, then increments Monday through Thursday, and then a manual active full on Friday's, what will happen to my previous chain of increments? On the following Monday, will my increments continue the chain that started on the previous Monday from the first full backup, or will the increment chain start anew from the active full I ran on Friday? Also, what will happen to my chain from the previous Monday. I'm assuming it will stay there according to the retention policy. I'm just a little confused on how the active full fits into all this.

[Shestakov]

You are correct, your previous backup chain (Mon-Thu) will be kept in accordance with the retention policy.
New increments will be written to the new chain of the last full backup(Friday).
Thanks!

[conradblack]

You are correct, your previous backup chain (Mon-Thu) will be kept in accordance with the retention policy.
New increments will be written to the new chain of the last full backup(Friday).
Thanks!

Fantastic, you guys have answered every single one of my questions... I appreciate it.

Now we can move forward with our backup plan

Thanks a lot!

[conradblack]

You are correct, your previous backup chain (Mon-Thu) will be kept in accordance with the retention policy.
New increments will be written to the new chain of the last full backup(Friday).
Thanks!

Sorry, I have one more question about scheduling the tape job.

If I want a virtual full backup to tape every day, then I understand I schedule it on the media pool settings. Now I'm curious about how I would schedule the actual tape job. If I schedule it to run at say, 10:30 pm, Mon-Thurs, and also schedule a virtual full on these days then all the increments that were created throughout the day will be transformed into a .vbk and copied to tape, correct? As for the active full on Friday, how do I ensure that only the active full is copied?

I wanted to run my jobs multiple times in the day to get multiple disk restore points a day. I plan to run a manual active full, say, at 6 pm, and I know how long the backup window is. Let's say it finishes at 10 pm, if I schedule my tape job to run at 10:30 pm then will only the active full be copied to tape? Do I need to have the "Process incremental backup files" box checked in order to transform the current chain into a vbk for the virtual fulls? If I have this checked, will it affect my active full backup?

Thanks

[veremin]

Schedule your backup to tape job to run on Mon-Thurs, in its settings disable checkbox "process increments" (as you want to have only .vbks on tapes), let virtual full backup be created on the very same days. With virtual full backup, even if there are several full backups present on disks, only one will be copied to tapes. It will be either virtual full backup or just an ordinary full backup, in case when the latest point on disk is full backup. Thanks.

[conradblack]

Schedule your backup to tape job to run on Mon-Thurs, in its settings disable checkbox "process increments" (as you want to have only .vbks on tapes), let virtual full backup be created on the very same days. With virtual full backup, even if there are several full backups present on disks, only one will be copied to tapes. It will be either virtual full backup or just an ordinary full backup, in case when the latest point on disk is full backup. Thanks.

I've tested all this and it works exactly as you described.

I'm very much appreciate the help I believe that is all for now... Unless there's something additional that I realize down the road =P

[veremin]

Glad to hear that now the concepts are more clear for you. Should other questions arise, don't hesitate to let us know. Thanks.

[vmff]

I've tested all this and it works exactly as you described.

I'm very much appreciate the help I believe that is all for now... Unless there's something additional that I realize down the road =P

The part they're not telling you, and the part you'll be back with down the road when you realize it, is that this method cannot handle also using the active full feature (or any function that creates a second .vbk in the reverse incremental chain) without also causing the tape job to try and put all of those .vbk's onto a single tape, each time the backup to tape job runs.

They say this is working as designed, but that they just haven't designed a way to put the most recent .vbk to tape automatically yet. So, we're left to manually copying out the .vbk to tape job as a file selection backup (yes, we have to do this in production each morning whenever multiple .vbk's show up in the chain) until the other .vbk's clear the chain or trying to get some unsupported scripting methods to work (no luck here yet). It is most painful, and with all the interest in putting the most recent .vbk to tape, very surprising that there is not a means to do it programmatically.

And what's also painful, is that this issue is being bragged about in the weekly digest as working well! Search the tape forum, it is riddled with this issue...

[veremin]

The part they're not telling you, and the part you'll be back with down the road when you realize it, is that this method cannot handle also using the active full feature (or any function that creates a second .vbk in the reverse incremental chain) without also causing the tape job to try and put all of those .vbk's onto a single tape, each time the backup to tape job runs.

With the described approach (forward forever incremental chain, periodic full backup conducted either manually or through PS script and virtual full backup) only one full backup should be created on tapes after initial job cycle. Thanks.

[conradblack]

I have another inquiry...

I'm curious about media sets and how they fit into this. I'm going to be doing GFS rotation, so one week I'll be using a set of 4 tapes for dailies during the week, then a "weekly" set that I'll send off on every Friday, except the last Friday of the month which will be a monthly.

For the dailies, I will be using 2 sets of 4 tapes. I will be using each set every other week. Let's call these sets "Daily A" and "Daily B". If I fill up my tapes Monday-Thursday during the week using the Daily A's, then use the Daily B's the next week, and switch back to the Daily A's during the third week, what will happen when I run my tape job? I will be marking these tapes as free. Will it try to copy every single VBK in the chain to tape, or only the latest? How do I ensure it only will copy the latest VBK?

I'm not really understanding the concept of media sets, and how they fit into this... If I'm using the same tapes every other week and my retention policy on disk backups is for a month's worth of restore points, then how will this work?
Thanks

[conradblack]

With the described approach (forward forever incremental chain, periodic full backup conducted either manually or through PS script and virtual full backup) only one full backup should be created on tapes after initial job cycle. Thanks.

Hmm, I'm a bit confused and I need some help and clarification.

I've realized my disk backup jobs need to have the same retention policy as my tape backups. What I want is to have one job, with 56 restore points, and copy a synthesized vbk to tape every day. The problem is, I'm going to be rotating the same set of tapes mon-thurs.

When I erase the previous Monday's tape on the following Monday, it copies any vbk's that were on this tape from the previous Monday. So if I run a tape job on Monday after erasing it, it will copy last Monday's vbk and this Monday's, which is not what I want.

I want only the latest one, but the tape job forces me to copy all vbk's to tape that are uncopied.

I really need to figure something out for this! I don't want to have to make a "daily" job that only has 4 restore points.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[veremin]

Actually, it's recommended to have longer retention on tapes than on disk. So, it seems that you need to either lower retention on disk on increase retention on tapes (so that, files that are still present on disks aren't erased from mediums). Thanks,

[conradblack]

Actually, it's recommended to have longer retention on tapes than on disk. So, it seems that you need to either lower retention on disk on increase retention on tapes (so that, files that are still present on disks aren't erased from mediums). Thanks,

Okay thank you, this makes sense now. I need to adjust my retention policy accordingly.

Now I'm running into issues with running the active full on Friday. I have a test scenario retention policy of 14 restore points for 1 week. In this scenario I'm going to run jobs twice a day.

Let's say I run my job for the first time on Monday. It will create a full backup file after the first run, and then on the second run it will create an increment. That night I will make a virtual synthetic full to tape (although in actuality on the first run it will only copy the first vbk that was created)

Tuesday, I will create two more vibs, and run a virtual synthetic to tape once more. This will continue until Friday. On Friday, I will run a manual active full, and then run the job once more and create another vib. I will copy the active full to tape on Friday.

On Saturday and Sunday, I will run my job two times, creating two more vibs on these days. This will create 14 restore points by Friday. I was hoping that when I run the job on the next Monday, that the first increment chain will have one vib removed from it, and the increment chain will move forward.

I was hoping this would allow me to use last weeks tapes, but the initial increment chain does not get trimmed. I'm testing it as we speak, and it's seeming that the initial increment chain won't be truncated until there's enough restore points in the new chain to match my 14 restore point retention policy.

Basically I want to use the active full feature on Friday and I want my previous increment chain to be truncated according to the retention policy. This is not how it's working according to my testing right now.

Any input would be appreciated

[Shestakov]

Your reasoning is correct except one thing: once you create Active Full, new chain is being started. So by Sunday you will have 2 chains: Full(1st Monday)+9increments(Mon-Thu) and Full(Friday)+ 5increments(Fri-Sun). When you run the job on the next Monday, the increment will go to the 2nd chain; but, the restore points of the first chains will not be deleted, until you have 14 restore points in the 2nd chain.

Could you specify the reason of running the Active Full manually on Friday? Thanks!

[conradblack]

Your reasoning is correct except one thing: once you create Active Full, new chain is being started. So by Sunday you will have 2 chains: Full(1st Monday)+9increments(Mon-Thu) and Full(Friday)+ 5increments(Fri-Sun). When you run the job on the next Monday, the increment will go to the 2nd chain; but, the restore points of the first chains will not be deleted, until you have 14 restore points in the 2nd chain.

Could you specify the reason of running the Active Full manually on Friday? Thanks!

I was under the impression that this would be the best way to ensure I have a consistent backup (I've read it's recommended to run an active full every 1-3 months) and we talked about using it in this thread. I'd like to avoid using SureBackup right now.. I just want to ensure I have proper backups.

[Shestakov]

You are correct, running Active Fulls once in a while is a part of best practice for cases when no Recovery verification techniques such as Surebackup are used.
Just keep in mind that due you active fulls you will have more restore points in your repository when making those active fulls.
Nevertheless your backup infrastructure will work without issues. Thanks!

[conradblack]

You are correct, running Active Fulls once in a while is a part of best practice for cases when no Recovery verification techniques such as Surebackup are used.
Just keep in mind that due you active fulls you will have more restore points in your repository when making those active fulls.
Nevertheless your backup infrastructure will work without issues. Thanks!

Now I need to decide whether or not I want to wrestle with active fulls, or use SureBackup.

Thank you for the help

[Shestakov]

You are welcome.
Surebackup recoverability testing is considered as the best practice. However, note that it`s not available for Standard Edition.
This topic can also help you to decide. Please take a look.