Daily tape overwrite

[IMEXDAN]

Hi
We have migrated to Veeam from BE2012 and are struggling to mirror the setup with regards to tape overwrites. Currently we backup all hyper-v guest machines as individual jobs overnight (approx. 10 machines). These multiple backup to disks work perfectly well and is set to use reverse incremental with a weekend full active backup. The aim is to always have a complete virtual machine image that can then be duplicated to tape.
We then through the day duplicate all of the guest VM disk jobs to tape as individual jobs. This again works perfectly well and stores a copy of the full VM on the tape.
The problem we have is that in BE2012 we could set the first tape job to 'overwrite the tape' and the last job to eject the tape. In Veeam we are struggling with understanding the logic around setting a tape to be overwritten. We have setup one media pool with a retention of 1 day, and have at least 7 days of tapes all in the pool. However when the daily tape comes round for overwriting the jobs appear to append only.
Is there any way to automate the adding of a new tape to the media pool, and also setting the inserted tape as fully overwriteable ready for the duplicate jobs?
The guides refer to simply setting the retention in the media pool, but this doesn't seem to have the desired effect and we find jobs appending.
We have installed the latest patch that referred to a similar problem with tape append only.
Any help much appreciated.
Dan

[veremin]

What settings are specified in "Media Set" tab (Media Pool -> Mediaset)? Thanks.

[IMEXDAN]

Hi
Media set "Daily Tape Media Pool";
"Do not create, always continue using current media set"
"Protect data for 1 day"

Dan

[veremin]

"Do not create, always continue using current media set"

I believe this is the reason why the data is appended to tape medium. Try to set "Create media set for every backup session" or "Daily at" option and see whether it helps or not. Thanks.

[fcmajor]

Hello

I have some problems with the retention period of the full backup tapes.
It does not overwrite the media.
My disk job settings are: Restore points on disk 3
Media Pool settings: Protect data for 2 weeks.

But e.g. a fullbackup from 23.03.2014 is on the tape and now I wanted to use this tape last friday (16.05.2014) it continues to write on the tape until it is full, but it should overwrite the old backup and put the new one on the tape.

[veremin]

What are the media set settings (Media Pool -> Media set)? Thanks.

[fcmajor]

it the weekly pool: "Do not create, always continue using current media set"

[veremin]

Retention settings applies to media sets. In your case, there is only one mediaset. Thus, the data is appended to tape medium, until it is full.

If you want to overwrite tapes, then, you should select different media set creation settings: be it "create new media set for every" or "daily at" - whichever one you like.

Thanks.

[IMEXDAN]

Hi
If we use "Create media set for every backup session" will this cause a problem when running multiple duplicate jobs on to the same tape during the same day?
i.e. a new media set created at the start of every job (potentially 10 or more a day).
Dan

[veremin]

If we use "Create media set for every backup session" will this cause a problem when running multiple duplicate jobs on to the same tape during the same day?

Each job will use a separate tape, as one medium can't host two different media sets. In this case, daily mediaset creation might be your way to go. Thanks.

[IMEXDAN]

Hi
I will set the media pool to create a new media set daily.
How to enable tape to be automatically added to the new media set?
Will I have to script something to set the tape as free prior to the first job running?
Thx
Dan

[Dima P.]

Dan,

Once you set "Create new media set daily" option on the media pool, free or retired media would be taken from this pool automatically. So does tape auto cleaning – when tape media is retired and was taken by backup to tape job it would be overwritten (short erase) before job actually put new data on it.

[idc2014]

i make full backup job every 2 days per week , then backup this job to tape with " protect data for 5 days " and media set is " don't create , always continue using current media set " the tape is full without overwrite the old backups in the tape

[idc2014]

i set tape job with full backup run one day every week , and set media pool with one tape
* " don't create always continue with current media set "
* "data retention is " protect data for 5 days "

i asked why the tape did not delete old backups ?

[veremin]

Unfortunately, part of the message appears to be missing. Thus, it's not clear what the question is. Thanks.

[idc2014]

the main question is when i set protect data for 5 days and media set is don't create , always continue using current media set , the tape did not apply the policy , i mean it does not erase old data ????

[veremin]

As mentioned above, the main reason is mediaset options you're currently using. As there is only one mediaset (forever), the retention settings can't be applied. Try to set different settings (be it "create new media set for every" or "daily at") and see whether it makes any difference. Thanks.

[idc2014]

i set tape job with full backup run one day every week , and set media pool with one tape
* " don't create always continue with current media set "
* "data retention is " protect data for 5 days "

i asked why the tape did not delete old backups ?

[veremin]

Have you reviewed the answers above? More specifically, this one.

* " don't create always continue with current media set "

With this option in place, the retention settings can't be applied, since there is only one mediaset. If you want to overwrite data, you should try different mediaset creation options (daily, etc.).

Thanks.