Feature request: Schedule "files to tape" after other job

[hawkeye80]

Hi Veeam team,

I would like to the the "after job" scheduling mechanism who is available at "Backup to Tape" jobs also be available on "File to Tape Backup" jobs.

After writing out the full backups on saturday morning I would like additionally write some files (for example physical Veeam server Windows backup folder).
It would be nice to just set this job to after instead of calculating a schedule time when the backup to tape should be finished.

Additionally I would like to give +1 on a tape verification option to compare the tape data with the repository afterwards. This is in my mind a must have for tape backups to find faulty tapes and drives.

Kind regards,
Daniel

[Shestakov]

Hello Daniel,
Thank you for the feedback and the use case explanation. We will take it into account.
For now your goal can be reached by use of a script.
Thanks!

[hawkeye80]

Hello Nikita,
you're absolutely right. I just have to internalize that I now have a great backup solution with a great Powershell implementation.
Going to remove the schedule on the files to tape job and do a post-script on the last backup to tape via

Code: Select all

Get-VBRTapeJob -Name "JOBNAME" | Start-VBRJob -RunAsync

Thank you!
Daniel

[Shestakov]

Correct, but adding the option in UI might be a good idea as well, so thanks again for the feedback!

[Didi7]

I am asking again, if you can make it possible to include a setting to start a 'File to tape Job' at the end of a finished disk or tape job. I would like to be in a position to start tape Jobs, als soon as disk Jobs are finished. Within disk Jobs this setting is available. It would be nice to have this Setting in 'File to tape Jobs' as well.

It is a very nice Feature Setting in Disk Jobs. Why not offer this Setting in Tage Jobs as well?

Thanks

[veremin]

Unfortunately, it is not possible via GUI at the moment. Though, it can be achieved with the use of the script provided above. Thanks.

[Erikn]

Yes please! Tape jobs take too long and interfere with backups too much. I would love to be able to automatically kick off "file to tape" job after other jobs.

[veremin]

Thanks for the feedback; appreciated.

For now feel free to give the said script a shot. Set it as a post-job activity and you're good to go.

[rreed]

+1 for adding this feature to the GUI please, was just this morning wishing this was there.

[Dja]

+2.... tape such a weakness with this product that is good in other areas. Just posted something similar to this.

[Didi7]

Will the scheduler in 'File to Tape Backup' Jobs include the feature to start the job after a disk Job in the next update to Version 9.0.0.1491 ?

In my opinion 'File to Tape Backup' Jobs are more flexible and you can include customized data, than just the *.vbk or *.vib files. To guess, when diskjobs might be finished can be troublesome. Is it really such a big effort to offer the schedule mechanism to start 'File to Tape Backup' Jobs after a finished Disk Job, when it's already available in 'Backup to Tape' Jobs?

Who else wishes to have the feature included asap?

Regards,
Didi7

[Shestakov]

Will the scheduler in 'File to Tape Backup' Jobs include the feature to start the job after a disk Job in the next update to Version 9.0.0.1491?

Not sure the feature is going to be included in the next minor update.

In my opinion 'File to Tape Backup' Jobs are more flexible and you can include customized data, than just the *.vbk or *.vib files. To guess, when diskjobs might be finished can be troublesome. Is it really such a big effort to offer the schedule mechanism to start 'File to Tape Backup' Jobs after a finished Disk Job, when it's already available in 'Backup to Tape' Jobs?
Who else wishes to have the feature included asap?

Could you specify the request, please? Currently file to tape jobs work with backup and non-backup files.
Thanks!

[Didi7]

Hello Shestakov,

I am only referring to the Scheduler of 'Files to Tape Jobs' under 'Full Backup' ...

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/vsp ... _pool.html

and under 'Incremental Backup' ...

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/vsp ... ments.html

Here you cannot specify to let the 'Files to Tape Job' run after a diskjob is finished, as you can do in a 'Backup to Tape Job' here ...

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/vsp ... edule.html

I really miss the scheduler option 'After this job' in 'File to Tape Jobs and as you can see here, a lot others as well. Is the effort to offer the schedule option 'After this job' in 'File to Tape Jobs' such a big change in the software?

Regards,
Didi7

[Dima P.]

Hi Didi7,

Deeper integration with source jobs, including additional scheduling options, is indeed provided in backup to tape jobs. Can you share any advantages of using file to tape jobs instead of backup to tape job, especially when it comes to files produces by VBR jobs? Thanks.

[Didi7]

Deeper integration with source jobs, including additional scheduling options, is indeed provided in backup to tape jobs

Unfortunately!

Can you share any advantages of using file to tape jobs instead of backup to tape job, especially when it comes to files produces by VBR jobs? Thanks.

Well, it's really simple. File to Tape Jobs are far more flexible. Instead of just saving *.vbk or *.vib diskjob files to tape, you can specify what kind of directories from your Veeam Backup & Replication server should be saved to tape as well, like for e.g. configuration directories, tape catalog info text files from a complex backup environment with tape libraries, parts of other Veeam Backup & Replication directories and many more files or directories, which one could consider as very important, especially when it comes down to completely re-install a broken Veeam Backup & Replication hardware.

Of course, if you completely manually re-install a physical Veeam Backup & Replication hardware, all you need to have to restore any kind of VM is the *.vbk and *.vib files, but it's helpful to have some more files from parts of your Veeam Backup & Replication environment in your backup tapes.

I personally tend to save the barcode label name of a weekly, monthly or yearly tape in a text file, because I have a complex robotic environment and should the complete Veeam Backup & Replication hardware explode and I need to re-install that system, I would like to know, what kind of tape was used in which week, month or year-end and that info is seperately saved in a text file, which I would like to save on tape as well and that's only possible with File to Tape Jobs, because there you can specify to backup more than just the *.vbk and *.vib files.

Similar reasons should be the case with other users here, which prefer to use 'File to Tape Jobs' over 'Backup to Tape Jobs', because the plain *.vbk and *.vib files aren't enough in their scenarios.

In fact, I personally don't see any advantage to use 'Backup to Tape Jobs' instead of 'File to Tape Jobs', because the latter is more flexible and offers more options to decide, what really should be placed on a tape.

And as I and others (so I did understand) don't want to guess, when disk jobs are finished, we would like to have the option to start 'File to Tape Jobs' as soon as a disk job is finished. This is only possible with the option 'After this job' in the scheduler.

So please, the feature request is more than 1 year old already and I would really like to see this feature included very soon. Other backup software offer options, like ...

Backup to Disk to Tape

... in one job. This would be another option, but Veeam Backup & Replication strictly seperates Disk and Tape jobs.

The scheduler option 'After this job' is really a nice feature in VBR, but it's missing in 'File to Tape Jobs' and it should be there as well.

Regards,
Didi7

[Didi7]

Honestly, it's no harm to look into other backup products and what they offer in their options, specially when it comes down to tape backup. I am sure a lot of users love the simplicity of VBR and many of them were used to other traditional backup software for a very long time and the tape part is very important to them, as Gostev admitted in one of his Digest lately.

Tape support is very good already, but there is still room for improvement.

Always keep in mind, where users came from (other backup software) and try to realize what there were used to before they started to use VBR. I am sure most of your VBR customers where used to backups, which finally find their way to tape and other backup software has lots of good options and flexibility regarding tape backup, so it's helpful to know the features of them as well.

I can compare several products, because I know many different backup products, so I know what features are really helpful and are partly missing in VBR. That's why I see so many feature requests here regarding tape backup

Regards,
Didi7

[rreed]

Things like verify in other tape backup software? And direct (VM) to tape backups? And eject the tape after any activity (erase, catalog, etc.) because it's best practice not to leave a tape in a drive? Advantages to using File to Tape instead of Backup to Tape? First and foremost to me is pulling our backups from a dedupe device. Counter-intuitively, Backup to Tape doesn't just copy a backup file (vbk, vib, etc.) to tape, for whatever reason VBR does some transformation on the files that for us, reside on dedupe device. Opening and working w/ files on a dedupe device is a no-go, please. So we have to use File to Tape to simply copy our Backups to Tape.

To Didi7's point, as much as I've loved and respected Veeam's general VMware backup capabilities, I can completely and identify w/ the fatigue setting in where we're all begging and clawing and prying to get Veeam to introduce long standing tried and true features into its Tape support. It becomes very difficult over time as paying customers to fight the fight of please just introduce this one little feature that we legitimately need and exists in every other tape software (so it would be understood to be seen as a useful feature) and the push-back we get is "Why? What good would that do you? Who would want to do that?" Ending w/ "Well we don't see how that would be useful, so we're going to do it, at least not right now." It makes it very difficult to take our eyes off our old tape software that have been doing the things we need quite well for a very long time. W/ utmost love and respect Veeam, please stop pushing back, take a good look at veteran tape software, and help accommodate what your paying customers are clamoring for rather than insisting on doing it your way. Please.

I don't think any of us are trying to be a butt here (I'm not!), we're just trying to get common features finally added in, and at that are very grateful we have a voice here.

[Didi7]

Do you now see the need for a scheduler option 'After this job' in a 'File to Tape Job' ?

Raise your voice guys!

Regards,
Didi7

[plandata_at]

I support this feature request!!

[Dima P.]

Hi guys,
Sorry for keeping silcence.

Didi7,
Thanks for explaing - makes sense to me.

rreed,

And eject the tape after any activity (erase, catalog, etc.) because it's best practice not to leave a tape in a drive?

Partially agree. The only reason why we keep the tape in drive after operations is to decrease the time spent on loading media. For instance, you can run inventory and start writing to the same tape without the need to reload this media again (thus saves time).

Opening and working w/ files on a dedupe device is a no-go, please.

This one is interesting and thanks for pointing this out. I'll check with QA and DEVs why it's not working.

help accommodate what your paying customers are clamoring for rather than insisting on doing it your way

That is exactly what all community forums are about and that is why I usually ask to supply a request with a personal a use case (such feedback goes further and is used during internal discussions). Please don’t get me wrong it was not a push back, more like a push forward from your side to our side

[hzahid]

Unfortunately still waiting for this feature since ~ last 3 years

[Novox]

"After this job: <dropdown for list of jobs>" is not currently a schedule option for "File to Tape" job types.

Please consider adding it, especially given that the Veeam guidance is to make multiple smaller "File to Tape" jobs to accommodate a large number of files.

If this option were added, multiple File to Tape jobs (and other jobs) could be chained to run sequentially.

Thank you,
~Bill

[Dima P.]

Hello Bill,

Thanks for the input, I've added your vote to this feature request. Cheers!