DDT Backup Job Design

[TBone]

In our previous backup solution we did a full backup to disk and tape on Monday, then incrementals to disk and tape Tuesday-Friday. On Monday, the previous week's repository was cleared out and we started again.

How do you do this in Veeam 7R2? The disk backup job works, but doesn't seem to clean up and start again on Monday. The repository keeps getting bigger. Right now it is set to keep 5 restore points on disk.

The tape incrementals appear to work as we only have a small amount of data written to tape daily, however when Monday comes around, it doesn't do a full backup to tape only an incremental and uses a synthetic full on Monday.

I may have found a solution to the tape issue by creating a two jobs. One runs on Monday and backs up the repository, not the job. The other job runs T-F after the disk job. This most likely will work for me, assuming I can figure out how to keep the size of the repository under control.

[veremin]

The disk backup job works, but doesn't seem to clean up and start again on Monday.

Yep, this isn't not how the retention policy works, as it keeps specified number of restore points, rather than deletes existing backup chain and starts it anew.

however when Monday comes around, it doesn't do a full backup to tape only an incremental and uses a synthetic full on Monday.

Could elaborate on it a little bit? You mean corresponding tape job doesn't copy full backup? Or it copies only newly created full backup not the chain as a whole?

Thanks.

[TBone]

Yes, on Monday the tape backup jobs continues to do an increamental instead of doing a new full.

[veremin]

So, if the corresponding tape job copies only newly created backup file, the situation looks expected.

The data already stored on tape mediums won't be archived again by tape, at least, until the corresponding tape mediums are overwritten. So, from this perspective, the tape job is forever incremental, copying only data that has been copied previously.

As to the tape overwrite period, it can be managed by the media pool settings (Media Pool -> Retention).

Thanks.