Feature Request - duplicate to tape for Monthly/Yearly bu's

[mtaggart]

Can there be some granularity put into the duplicate to tape jobs similar to how Backup Exec allows you to run a duplicate backup to tape job following any backup job? With Veeam B & R, you can only do this following a daily backup.

We have migrated to Veeam from Veritas and this one item is very much needed in Veeam. Currently with Veeam B & R you can only do what is being requested in the daily backup jobs. When I need to run my monthly/yearly full backups to tape I do not have the capability to run a duplicate to tape following a backup to disk job. We've had issues with using GFS since becoming a new customer.

Please make this programming change, there should be more flexibility in the scheduling of duplicate jobs to tape than there currently is.

Thank you,

Mike

[slmacquarie]

Can't you just create a new Tape job using the monthly/yearly backup as the source?

It sounds like the my backup policies are similar to yours, so I'll give you a breakdown of what I've done:

Single Backup job with 10 restore points doing synthetic full's on Friday.
4 Tape Jobs all sourcing the one job above:
1. Daily/Weekly Backup to Tape
2. Monthly/Yearly GFS Backup to Tape (Weekly/Quarterly disabled) - a virtual full is created at the end of the scheduled day if no full job occurs during the day.
3. Config Backup to Tape Daily
4. Config Backup to Tape Weekly

In the daily media set I've set it to 'Automatically create new media set' Daily at 9:30pm on the weekdays - This was so I could also write the Veeam Configuration backup to each daily/weekly tape.

[mtaggart]

slmacquarie -- Thank you for the reply and your help.

We have tried that as well (our setup is pretty close to yours) and it doesn't work, the duplicate job will not follow the backup to disk job - currently the way Veeam is programed that is not an option. We want the duplicate job to follow the backup job vs. waiting a bulk amount of time to then kick in.

Mike

[mtaggart]

Anyone from Veeam Development??? Help?

[Shestakov]

Hello Mike,
Could you specify your request, please?
Do you want to write same backups from disk to tape twice?
If so, the best way is to create another backup to tape job with desired settings.

We have tried that as well (our setup is pretty close to yours) and it doesn't work, the duplicate job will not follow the backup to disk job - currently the way Veeam is programed that is not an option. We want the duplicate job to follow the backup job vs. waiting a bulk amount of time to then kick in.

I suppose we are talking about GFS media pools and backup to tape jobs. Indeed in the current version the job is designed to wait 24 hours for new restore points. However, we are planning to improve the logic a bit adding an option to decrease the interval. We are planning to implement it in the next version(9.5)
By the way, there is a related tape GFS scheduling discussion. Please take a look.
Thanks!

[mtaggart]

Thank you for the reply.

What the request is to have the better scheduling for tape backups so that any duplicate backup job going to tape can start as soon as the backup to disk job is completed. Backup Exec does this. I'm also asking for not having to write 2 backups to tape during a time when the GFS jobs run - it's a waste of 2 sets of tapes, it's unnecessary. If the GFS job runs, it's a full backup to tape, that should supercede the regular job that will write to tape following the synthetic full job that runs.

[Shestakov]

Mike,

What the request is to have the better scheduling for tape backups so that any duplicate backup job going to tape can start as soon as the backup to disk job is completed.

It`s currently feasible with post-job activity.
There is also an option to force the tape jobs to make a GFS run.

I'm also asking for not having to write 2 backups to tape during a time when the GFS jobs run - it's a waste of 2 sets of tapes, it's unnecessary.

It should not write 2 backups of the same VMs during a single run by current design. Do you experience different behavior?
Thanks!

[mtaggart]

Shestakov,

Thank you for the reply.

We should not have to run anything special to get the product to do something it should already know how to do. It seems to me that there's a lot of folks with GFS issues and scheduling when I look through the forums. Why can't there just be better scheduling to allow for the duplicate jobs to run right after the primary backup to disk job? Other vendors handle this with ease. Why can't Veeam follow suit to make life just a little easier for us that need to maintain backups?

Yes, every time we have a scheduled GFS job (whether it be month end or year end) we have to allow the backup software to run it's weekly backup to tape job and then have to wait on GFS to run. We were told by the support staff there that there is no other option to by pass this, that this is how the backup software has been written.

It's very aggravating. This is probably the biggest headache we have since moving to Veeam for a backup solution.

Mike

[Shestakov]

I see your point Mike,

v9 is the first version where tape GFS option appeared and the next, version 9.5 will have improvements most of which came form the customers requests. So thanks for sharing your feedback!

Talking about tape duplicate jobs, there are not that much of requests we had and all of them based on 2 use cases which have easy workarounds.
1. "I want to copy backups from disk repository to 2 or more medias" Workaround: create 2 or more backup to tape jobs.
2(rare). "I want to copy existing backups from 1 tape to another, and there are no copies on disks." e.g. "I want to upgrade my tape infrastructure from old LTO-3 to LTO-7" Workaround: restore files from old tapes and write them to the new ones.

As far as I understood you need to have 2 copies on different tapes, so the way to go for you is to have 2 backup to tape jobs.
Thanks!

[mtaggart]

Can you tell us what improvements are coming as well as when 9.5 will be released?

As for my feature request, will it be taken seriously and implemented?

I'm not understanding what you mean when you say "As far as I understood you need to have 2 copies on different tapes, so the way to go for you is to have 2 backup to tape jobs." I've never requested this. We only want to have 1 backup to tape every week for the full backups regardless of whether it's a normal weekly backup, month end backup or year end backup and for that job to happen immediately after a backup to disk job. With the lack of scheduling capabilities as the current software is written, we are forced into having to use GFS which in turn causes us to have to run 2 backup to tape jobs (1 for the weekly backup after the synthetic full and 1 for the GFS job).

Aside from this one topic, we love the software.

Mike

[Shestakov]

Can you tell us what improvements are coming as well as when 9.5 will be released?

General availability of 9.5 is to happen in the second half of this year (actual release date will depend mostly on Windows Server 2016 RTM availability).
I can`t promise any features until they are fully tested. All updates are going to be announced in our website.

As for my feature request, will it be taken seriously and implemented?

All members of product management team including VP review the forums daily. It doesn`t mean everything you ask is going to be implemented in the next update, but it will be taken into account for sure.

We only want to have 1 backup to tape every week for the full backups regardless of whether it's a normal weekly backup, month end backup or year end backup and for that job to happen immediately after a backup to disk job.

What about using regular(not GFS) backup to tape job to run weekly and copy all new full backups?
By the way, you can schedule a job to run in a certain time or "Run after this job" and set a corresponding job.
Thanks!

[mtaggart]

Ok .. thank you for that info.

Ok ..

We need to send tapes off weekly, monthly and year end. What we want to do is only run 1 full backup to tape every weekend no matter which week of the month it is and we want it to follow immediately after the full synthetic job finishes. Can we do that? We keep getting told no that we have to run 2 full backups to tape at the month end and year end and neither of which immediately follow the full synthetic job.

[Shestakov]

Yes, it is feasible, but not with a single job yet.

If you want job start right after another job, tape GFS is not your choice, because it waits for new restore points the whole day. So you need to create a regular backup-to-tape job and set As new backup files appear option with. You may also set backup window to copy on exact day of week only.
You need also disable Archive incremental backups to tape check box since you want to copy full backups only.
With these settings you will have a job writing full backups on tape as soon as they appear on disk(when synthetic job finishes).

If you want same for monthly and yearly backups, you need to create more tape jobs. We are working on logic which let you implement the idea with a single job.
Thanks!

[mtaggart]

Thank you for the information and options.

When is "We are working on logic which let you implement the idea with a single job." going to be available. I need that 'yesterday'

[Shestakov]

Again, I can`t promise it, not sure if it`s going to be in the list of v9.5 features, but it`s in our roadmap.
Thanks!

[lukklin]

Hi @all,

I'm working for a German veeam propartner, we have currently one feature request from a large customer. They are planning to upgrade there tape library to newer drives.

short example:

LTO5 drives can write to LTO4&5 and can read from LTO3-5
LTO6...write to LTO5&6..and read LTO 4-6
LTO7 same scheme..

There should be a feature like "Tape to Tape" Copy-Jobs, to copy old veeam tape medias over to newer tape medias, to make the lives of Tape-Admins easier

Thanks and kind regards
Lukas

[Shestakov]

Hi Lukas,
There are 2 workarounds for the case of tape media upgrade. You can either start using new tapes having existing backups on older tapes for historical purposes. Or you can restore the files to disk and write them back to the new tapes.
Indeed tape-to-tape is not available so far, however we will take your request into account.
Thanks for the feedback!

[mtaggart]

Shestakov,

So, 9.5 has come and gone and no improvement to GFS backups. Will we see it version 10?

Mike

[veremin]

We cannot comment on feature set of next product release at the moment, but you can be rest assured that certain GFS improvements won't miss version 10. Thanks.

[mtaggart]

When is Version 10 due for release?

Thanks for the followup.

Mike

[Shestakov]

So, 9.5 has come and gone and no improvement to GFS backups.

Despite such tape features as
• Direct restore from tape
• Automatic tape driver cleaning
• up to 50x performance for File to Tape jobs

There are GFS-specific
• Adjustable GFS media set retention
• Improved stability and performance of GFS archival

When is Version 10 due for release?

No exact ETA of v10 on this stage. Sorry.

[mtaggart]

So with 'Direct restore from tape', we can now restore individual items from tape without having to restore the large image file to disk first then restore to tape? If that is possible, we want direction on how to do that - we've had a few restores recently in which we still have to restore the entire backup image file first to disk then can restore the data.

Please explain 'Adjustable GFS Media set retention' - don't know anything about that, didn't know it was an option.

Ok on the ETA of 10, I figured someone would know from Veeam that's in this chain.

[veremin]

So with 'Direct restore from tape', we can now restore individual items from tape without having to restore the large image file to disk first then restore to tape?

Nope, it means that you can restore particular VM from tape directly to production host without staging repository.

Please explain 'Adjustable GFS Media set retention' - don't know anything about that, didn't know it was an option.

Quote from What's New: Similar to simple media pools, it is now possible to change the retention for previously written tape media within any GFS media set.