Controll what date is backed up to tape

[auser42]

I have backup copy jobs running offsite with 30 restore points each. I want to get the latest backups from the last day of the month, and start running them to tape on the 1st.

I upgraded to v9 set a tape job:
full backup: Schedule > Monthly on This day > Last.
Schedule(Run this job) Monthly > This day > 1.

What I got were tapes with restore points all over the place starting back from the begging of last month. I assume these are actually the dates with the actual first full backup.

What did I do wrong?

[PTide]

Hi,

I just want to make sure that I got it right:

I want to get the latest backups from the last day of the month, and start running them to tape on the 1st.

Last day of the month (January for example):

29th increment is produced by backup copy on the 31st of January. Now you have Full backup from the 2nd of January + 29 increments.

First day of February:

Tape Job kicks off and places full backup containing VMs' state from the 31st of January and that's it - just one full goes to the tape once in 30 days.

Is that what you want to achieve? Please elaborate.

Thank you.

[auser42]

That is all correct. Two things:
I want 30 days of backup copy on disk.
I want the 31st (or last day of the month) to go to tape.

[PTide]

Then you need to setup full backup as Monthly on This day > Last (you've already done it). Also you need to uncheck "Archive incremental backups to tape" so only last month's full goes to tape. Unfortunately there is a known bug in that part of configuration so in order to make it work you need to contact our support team so they can provide you with a private fix (will be included in Patch 1).

Thank you.

[Shestakov]

By the way, there is a Tape Backups report in Veeam ONE which shows what restore points are written on each tape.

[McClane]

Also in the free version? At the moment that's the only thing that interests me in Veeam One, since B&R is missing the "feature" that tells me what is on the tapes, but that alone does not justify the investment.

[foggy]

Veeam ONE Free does not feature this report.

[McClane]

Sadly. I am still finding a way to get the information via powershell, but I think some essentials are not (yet) implemented. I will try to get it out of the database directly.

[foggy]

You can ask for help with your PowerShell finding in the corresponding subforum.

[McClane]

Already did, but no resolution so far. I dug through the SQL Database and found all relevant information I need. But putting that together for a nice report will take some time. I few commands to get all tapes that contain the latest full backup and all incrementals to a specific date for a specfic tape jop would be awesome.

[PTide]

Hi,

A few commands to get all tapes that contain the latest full backup and all incrementals to a specific date for a specfic tape jop would be awesome

I believe that this thread might be useful, please take a look.

Thank you.

[McClane]

It was till version 8, since Find-VBRTapeCatalog is not obsolete and no substitute is there (yet I hope).

[Shestakov]

Sadly. I am still finding a way to get the information via powershell, but I think some essentials are not (yet) implemented. I will try to get it out of the database directly.

There are lots of useful features both in Monitor and Reporter. You may want to check trial version.
Thanks!

[McClane]

can I use the reports for powershell scripting? if not, I don't need the software. also, we have reporting and monitoring tools already. makes no sense to pay for an additional product to get information that is essential for a backup program. I really hate these aggressive marketing and product announcements and that will drive me away from an quite useful tool. I tried veeam one already and decided that it's not needed form us. and we don't pay a few
thousand euros per year for just backup reports.

[Shestakov]

I`m neither salesman nor marketing guy, just suggested you a workaround.
Surely nothing stops you from using scripts instead of hardcoded reports.

[McClane]

I think you misunderstand me. I don't need the reports to print out, I need the data of what is on which tape to automaticly move tapes around. For example to export the tapes with the full backup of one job in week 23 and all its incrementals after.
Even in the GUI its not clear to see that the incrementals after a full backup belong to that full backup.
Yes, with a printed report I could handpick the tapes and export them, but this can lead to mistakes and I can't automate it.

Oh, i forgot: In the GUI I can't even see the tape names on which the fulls and incrementals are. I would have to find the media set and collect the tape names from there. So there is no way in the GUI to export a tape job from a specific run. Only way would be to start restore process for all backup jobs in the tape job, which will show me which tapes it will need, which I could copy and paste. That's not practical. It would be great to get exactly that output from a powershell command. That would make me happy. Something like

Code: Select all

Get-VBRTapeMedium -job $tapejob -LastFull 
or
Get-VBRTapeMedium -job $tapejob -date 11-04-2016 -IncludeIncrementals

[veremin]

While tapes written on certain date can be gotten quite easily by querying LastWriteTime property (Get-VBRTapeMedium | where {$_.LastWriteTime -eq $Date}), there is no easy way in PS to get tapes content.

Something for us to think about in future product versions.

Thanks.

[McClane]

Yes, i am currently working with dates. But I use CreationTime instead of LastWriteTime because a job could last longer than 24 hours. But that is not reliable because if the backup fails and maybe restarted the next day, I am in trouble. I would need to program the whole logic to find the next successful backup and go from there.

Here are 2 examples of what I am playing around with:
1. Get tape media of a tape job with all sessions from the last Saturday (which is the day for a synthetic full) and the following 6 days incrementals (if one per day, failure if there were more)

Code: Select all

 ([veeam.backup.core.cbackupsession]::GetSessionsForJob($job.id) |sort CreationTime  | ? { (get-date $_.CreationTime -Format "MM-dd-yyyy") -ge $PreviousSaturday }|select -first 7 ).auxdata

2. Find the last synthetic full on tape for a backup to tape job

Code: Select all

(Get-VBRTapeBackup -Name "Archiv on Tape").getpoints() |? { $_.Algorithm -eq "full" } | sort CreationTime  | select -last 1

Maybe someone has other ideas to get better information.
I am still looking for a way to get the session id for the restore point that Get-VBRTapeBackup will show me. That way I would get the tape name from the restore point. But the output does not show any link to the session.