Daily Full Backup to Tape

[mschau]

Hi Forum,

I'm using Veeam 9.5 for VMware and want to set up daily backups to NAS and Tape.
At the moment I've configured a "reverse increment" backup job with 20 restore points (and a weekly maintainance).

My question is how to configure the daily full backup to tape job. At the moment only increments are copied to tape.

Thanks for any help!

[Shestakov]

Hi!
You need to create Tape backup job, choose the backup repository as a source, enable full backups only and run the job daily.
Thanks!

[veremin]

My question is how to configure the daily full backup to tape job. At the moment only increments are copied to tape.

What type of tape job are you using? Backup to tape or file to tape one? And what product edition do you have? Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise+?

[mschau]

Thanks for your replies!

I'm using Backup to Tape and the Essentials Enterprise version.

[Shestakov]

With backup to tape job (which is available only in Ent and Ent+ licenses) your goal is feasible.
Try to follow the suggestion at my first answer.
Thanks!

[veremin]

If you're archiving reversed incremental chain to tapes via backup to tape job, no tweaks should be required. If you simply select such job as a source, only full backup should be copied on daily basis.

If this doesn't happen, it might be worth reaching our support team.

[chillware]

Hey guys,

I'm on the latest Veeam 9.5U1, with a backup to disk job configured as the recommended Incremental backup mode. Seems like no matter what I try, it's not possible to get a daily full to tape after this job runs, I either get nothing or just an incremental on the tape..

Based on some research it seems I must use the Reverse Incremental backup mode to get the latest backup to always be a full which will then go tape as a full. Before I change my backup type, and trigger another full backup, I wanted to see if this is in fact true or if I'm just missing something. If this is in fact true, why is this not documented better (at least tell me in GUI this fact) and why is forward Incremental recommended when it's not suitable for this common strategy?

Thanks!

[mschau]

It works - many thanks!

[Shestakov]

Hello David,
Backup to tape job copies backups from disk. If there is no new full backup on disk every day, nothing is to be copied(not talking about increments).
Full backups can be written on tape daily either if you use reverse incremental mode or perform synthetic or active fulls daily.
Thanks!

[chillware]

Hello David,
Backup to tape job copies backups from disk. If there is no new full backup on disk every day, nothing is to be copied(not talking about increments).
Full backups can be written on tape daily either if you use reverse incremental mode or perform synthetic or active fulls daily.
Thanks!

Got it, thank you for clarifying for me!

[Shestakov]

You are welcome, David.
Once you have a question, don`t hesitate asking!

[mma]

Hello Veeam

Any (technical?) reason why I can not use virtual synthesized full backups if I use incremental with scheduled active full?

We have a customer which has a "standard" incremental job with monthly active full. Now he likes to have a daily full backup written to tape.
Veeam can do this if I use forever incremental, but not with inc and active full...

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... tml?ver=95
NOTE:
The primary job configuration must not have scheduled synthetic or active full backups. If it does, the virtual full will be disabled even if configured in the tape job.

Looks like the best setup in this case is reversed incremental with monthly active full - correct?

Regards
Marcel

[Shestakov]

Hello Marcel,
You are correct, if you want to write full backups on tape daily, while not performing active fulls on the source job, the best way is to switch the backup source job mode to reverse incremental.
Thanks!

[mma]

Ok, and what's about "Any (technical?) reason why I can not use virtual synthesized full backups if I use incremental with scheduled active full?"

Because it will be nonsense?
I'm just currious about the reason.

Regards
Marcel

[lyapkost]

Hi, Marcel. No technical reasons, just logic ones. If there's already a synthetic full scheduled in source job you always have one full backup every week which goes to tapes. In most cases one full per week on tapes is enough so synthetic full is disabled in this configuration to avoid waste of tapes and time. Don't forget that tape job may include several source jobs with and without scheduled full. With the current logic you will always have no more than one full per veek (and no less than one per month depending on settings) on tapes for every source job without any tricks.

In case there's a need in every day's full on tape, reverse incremetal mode for the source job is the best choise.

[cs@ferropharma.de]

Hi,

I want to backup our virtual server to disk (incremental) and to tape (full) dialy. Therefore the backup mode is incremental with an active full every Friday.

The second target is tape drive where a virtual full should be stored dialy.

Now the problem is that nothing is written to the tape and the job is successfull.

Where is the thinking error?

Thanks Christian

[PTide]

Hi,

You can't have daily virtual full on tape if active fulls are enabled in the source job:

The primary job configuration must not have scheduled synthetic or active full backups. If it does, the virtual full will be disabled even if configured in the tape job.

Thank you

[cs@ferropharma.de]

Thanks. When I changed the job to reverse incremental I would have a dialy full which could be written to the tape.

Correct? Should I plan a frequently health job?

Thanks
Christian

[Dima P.]

When I changed the job to reverse incremental I would have a dialy full which could be written to the tape.

Correct.

Should I plan a frequently health job?

Are you referring to VM backup automatic health check?

[cs@ferropharma.de]

Yes, I asking for the Health check which I can configure at the advanced job settings.

I have to arrange with the idea that I never have to create a full job...

Thanks
Christian

[veremin]

You'd better running Surebackup (with storage level corruption verification enabled) regularly. This should be enough to guarantee that backups written to tapes are restorable. Thanks.

[Lunddahl]

I have the same problem.

Small customer, 30 VM's.

One job for each VM:
- Incremental
with synthetic full every Saturday (no transformations, this i probarly never run, because active full is selected.)
active full every Saturday

With the Job run every day and 21 restore points, this gives me plenty of copies of the backup on the repository, i like that there is at least 3 fulls, just because of silent data corruption, and i like that the incrementals run very quick.

I wanted to get backups off site, and be able to archive some old backups too, so i purchased a LTO6 drive, 2.4 GB is quite enough to hold all backup on one tape. I also purchased 10 tapes, one for every weekday (Monday to Thursday) and 4 for every friday in the month. I was thinking that i could create a job that does this:

1. Runs every day (after reguar backups.)
2. Creates a Synthetic Full based on the newest restore point to the tape.
3. Eject the tape.

However i can't get it to work.

1. I have created one media pool with all tapes, and given them names.
2. I have created one Job, and pointed it to the one repository i have. (i will later point it to VM's)
3. First run on a Wednesday did only take the Fulls From last Saturday, because i did not include incrementals.
4. Next run (with included incrementals, did only take the incrementals.)

I can't see how a can make this happen easily, what am i missing ?

I guess i want to do a Reverse Incremental to tape with just one restore point(the full), the source should not be VM's but the backups in the repository, is this possible.

Will this be possible with the GFS Media Pool, or is that for something else ?

The only way i see it is making 5 Media Pools this way:

1. Monday (1 tape)
2. Tuesday (1 tape)
3. Wednesday (1 tape)
4 Thursday (1 tape)
5. Friday (4 tapes for each friday in the month.)

And then create 5 Jobs, with both Full and Incrementals included.

However this uses a lot of space on the Thursday tape, as what is actually backed up is the Full from Saturday + 5 incrementals.

What do others do that have purchased a single drive and x tapes, that wants to keep things simple and every physical tape "standalone" ?