Enable Incremental

[redhorse]

Hello,

today we have a non-gfs weekly full tape backup of our VMs and it’s working fine for years. Now, we’d like to add an extra layer of security and want to enable the incremental backups for this job. We want to keep the incremental tapes outside, so we need one tape for each incremental.

How can we achieve this by changing the current tape job? I assume I have to configure the media pool and enable the daily increments within the tape job. Is there anything special to consider? What happens during the first run after enabling increments?

Thanks in advance!

[HannesK]

Hello,
Yes, you need to enable incremental backups in the backup job to get incremental backups to tape. https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100

I'm not sure about the "after" question. The UI should show a green "successful" Increments should be on tape then.

Best regards,
Hannes

[redhorse]

Hi Hannes,

thanks!

To be honest I am not really sure what happens during the incremental tape job, let's assume the following situation:

Source Job (Forever incremental):
Thursday -> Full
Friday -> Inc
Saturday -> Inc
Sunday -> Inc
Monday -> Inc

Tape Job
Sunday -> Synthesize full backup
Monday -> Inc

What will be stored on tape? All available increments from the source job even if they are useless on tape (e.g. the increment from Friday)?

How does the retention works? I want to keep the increments until the next full backup is stored to tape, so I need a separate media pool, but what do I have to configure and how is the retention related to the full backup?

Sorry for all the questions

[HannesK]

EDIT: removed because I mixed reverse incremental with forward incremental forever

[redhorse]

Oh, that was not clear for me. I read the tape devices support guide and I didn't find any information about it. In addition it is technically possible to enable incremental backups to tape even if the source job is forever incremental.

[Dima P.]

Hi redhorse!

was not clear for me. I read the tape devices support guide and I didn't find any information about it. In addition it is technically possible to enable incremental backups to tape even if the source job is forever incremental.

Backup to tape fully supports incremental backup (the only exception is reversed incremental source jobs since the last backup is always full).

Tape Job
Sunday -> Synthesize full backup

During the initial run job will wire existing backup chain from disk to tape. Following job runs will trigger the synthetic full backup on Sunday.

Tape Job
Monday -> Inc

Tape job will write incremental restore point to tape for Monday and will link it to the previous Sunday full.

Now, back to the first question:

Now, we’d like to add an extra layer of security and want to enable the incremental backups for this job. We want to keep the incremental tapes outside, so we need one tape for each incremental.

Enable incremental backup in the tape job, set it to run daily (make sure that schedule is set to run after restore point is created on disk to avoid any schedule overlap). Since you want to store the increlemals on a separate tape media I'd recommend to create a dedicated media pool for incremental only and set media set creation option to create new media set for every job run. That will ensure new tape will be taken for every tape out in with the incremental media pool. Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers!

[redhorse]

Thanks, that’s really great to hear. So, if I enable incremental on an existing tape job I somehow start from scratch because the whole existing chain will be fired to tape?

What about the retentions of the incremental tapes? If I have a Media pool for the synthetic full with a retention of four weeks and another media pool for increments with a retention of one week, how does it work? The increments depend on each other and in addition on the synthetic full? My target is to have the increments of one week on tape until the next synthetic full is created.

Example:
Sunday: Synthetic Full, Tape 1 of Media Pool 1
Monday: inc, Tape 1 of Media Pool 2
Tuesday: Inc, Tape 2 of Media Pool 2
...
Saturday: Inc, Tape 6 of Media Pool 2
Sunday: Synthetic Full, Tape 2 of Media Pool 1
—> Now I don’t need the old increments anymore and I want to overwrite them with the next increments depending on the new synthetic full

I hope it’s clear and it’s somehow possible.

Thanks!

[Dima P.]

You are welcome!

Thanks, that’s really great to hear. So, if I enable incremental on an existing tape job I somehow start from scratch because the whole existing chain will be fired to tape?

You can control if only the latest chain should be processed via tape jobs advanced settings. Latest chain = latest full backup plus all dependent incrementals.

The increments depend on each other and in addition on the synthetic full?

Correct. Incremental restore point requires entire backup chain: all previously created incrementals and full backup. When it comes to tape retention there is no reason to keep incrementals on tape longer than full backup (when full tape gets erased it wont be possible to restore from incremental tape anyway)

—> Now I don’t need the old increments anymore and I want to overwrite them with the next increments depending on the new synthetic full

Set retention for incrementals to one week and that should do it.

I'd also suggest to keep incremental backups close to each other instead of spreading those across multiple media: if something goes wrong with, say, Monday incremental tape - it wont be possible to use incremental backup from Tuesday tape anyway, but with such approach you will likely leave extra free space unused.

If you still want one tape per day of incrementals - you need to set media set creation to Daily at. If you want to consume maximum tape space keep Do not create, always continue using current media set option. Here is the detailed overview in case you need it. Cheers!

[redhorse]

So the retention process for incrementals wouldn’t delete a Monday incremental when there is still a Tuesday incremental which needs the Monday one?

I'd also suggest to keep incremental backups close to each other instead of spreading those across multiple media: if something goes wrong with, say, Monday incremental tape - it wont be possible to use incremental backup from Tuesday tape anyway, but with such approach you will likely leave extra free space unused.

Yes, that’s a good point. But on the other hand I can’t keep the incremental tapes out of the tape library if I use it for a whole week. That’s something where I have to balance between security, possible failure and comfort.

[Dima P.]

For tape jobs the retention is set for tapes and not the backups, so Monday tape will be marked as free at the set date.

[redhorse]

After some tests I am confused, altough there were just new incrementals the tape job started to backup full backups to tape. Just to clarify this once again, is it really supported, useful und possible to use a forever incremental backup job as a source job for an incremental to tape job?

[Dima P.]

redhorse,

Yes, it's fully supported. If the source job is in forever forward incremental backup mode (i.e. no periodic full backups), then tape job will synthetize full backups on it's own according to the job schedule. Can you please check if that's the case with your setup? Thank you!

[redhorse]

Great, my tests were successful and I sure that I understood the proccess now

But I still need some help with the job configuration, here's my requirement:

I need a synthetized full of all of my jobs with the restore point of Friday and an increment on the other days, how should I configure the tape job? I've configured Friday within the Full Backup schedule and I scheduled the job to run every day as I need incrementals every day.

What happens if the tape job runs on Friday and a restore point for Friday is still not available? This may happen if the source job is still running or the restore point is locked by a backup copy job. In my previous configuration without increments the job was scheduled for Saturday so and inactive for Friday, so all jobs were already finished.

[Dima P.]

Glad to hear it!

I need a synthetized full of all of my jobs with the restore point of Friday and an increment on the other days, how should I configure the tape job? I've configured Friday within the Full Backup schedule and I scheduled the job to run every day as I need incrementals every day.

The configuration sounds right!

What happens if the tape job runs on Friday and a restore point for Friday is still not available?

If tape job has no incrementals for Friday synthetic full it will use closest restore point instead. Here is the detailed overview of the logic, let me know if you still have any questions. Cheers!

[redhorse]

Thank you for your reply, Dima. Unfortunately it's not working as expected, we've already opened a support case (#04598214) which is in further investigation.

[Dima P.]

Hello RH,

Thanks for sharing the case id. From the case details I see that the issue was related to the amount of restore points on the source job: the retention of source job was smaller, so the entire backup chain was modified completely before the next tape run. As a result tape job processed entire backup chain every time. Let us know if you have any questions or need any further assistance!

[redhorse]

Yes, it's clear now and I know what to do

Thanks!