Feature Request: Tape Job > Inject VIB into latest VBK

[push3r]

I would like to request new feature for the Backup to Tape Job that would utilize "Virtual Synthesized Full Backup for Tape" that would also work for Backup Job mode of Incremental with periodic Active Full. I am using monthly Active Full to reduce the long Incremental chain and also it's best practice for Windows 2012 R2 Deduplication.

Basically, what I would like is for the Backup to Tape job to store ONLY vbk or full backup on tapes and inject the vib after the latest full on the day that the Tape Job runs, doesn't matter what the source job is.

From the documentation section titled "Virtual Synthesized Full Backup for Tape" (http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/80/v ... _full.html), this seems to only for for Forever Incremental where there is only 1 vbk file. In my current Backup Job, I have two VBKs due to retention policy.

Thank you.

[veremin]

You can switch the source backup job to forward forever incremental mode and run additional full backup required by your retention policy manually (Right-click -> Active full) or through PS. The chain would be still recognized as forward forever incremental one and backup to tape job would create virtual full backup for it directly on tapes. Thanks.

[push3r]

Thank you for this, but it would have helped if this option is in the UI somewhere. Is there any plan to add this sort of options? That is, a separate area to schedule Active Full and yet have the Backup Job as Forward Forever Incremental.

[veremin]

As it stands from its name, Forward Forever incremental always creates increments, not fulls. With scheduled periodic fulls, your chain becomes an ordinary forward incremental one (type of chain we've had for years).

If you want to create a full backup for a forward forever incremental chain, you can still do it through GUI: right-click -> Active full.

Thanks.

[push3r]

Ok. I will just use Task Scheduler and Powershell scripts to do the Active Full monthly.

Now, for the latest vib to inject into the latest vbk, on the Backup to Tape Job, do I have to tick the box "Process incremental backup files"?

Thank you.

[veremin]

do I have to tick the box "Process incremental backup files"?

No, as long as, you're using VB&R 8 Update 2. Thanks.

[push3r]

The original Feature Request still stands because I am looking at the VBK files on tape and there are multiples VBKs for the same backup jobs, even though I am using forward forever incremental and synthesized vbk from the latest vib. Is this working the way it is intended? If so, I hope the new version or update would only store ONE VBK on tape; and within that VBK, only use the latest VBK and inject the VIBs within that chain.

So, right now, the "Virtual Synthesized Full Backup for Tape" is useless as it's taking up too much space on tape and storing also storing the useless older VBK. Useless being that I have two VBKs within each Backup Job and I am only interested in the latest VBK and VIBs.

Please advise. Thank you.

[Greg.Bean-DeFlumer]

For the sake of clarity, I'm going to restate what you're looking for. Please feel free to correct me.

Let's say you have a forward incremental job that runs every day with scheduled Active Fulls once a month. You have a tape job that runs once a week. You only want VBKs on tape (no incremental files) and you only want one of them.

So since the backup job only runs an active once a month, and the tape job doesn't process incrementals, your tape job will be out of date until the next month's full.

So what you'd like it to be able to do is when the tape job runs, detect that the backup job has a week's worth of incrementals on disk, and have the tape job inject those incrementals on the fly into the full already on the tape. Or even write the incrementals to tape, inject them into the full, and then remove the incrementals.

Is this correct?

[nikpolini]

Hi.

I think i understand what is being asked as I have the exact issue.

So what you'd like it to be able to do is when the tape job runs, detect that the backup job has a week's worth of incrementals on disk, and have the tape job inject those incrementals on the fly into the full already on the tape. Or even write the incrementals to tape, inject them into the full, and then remove the incrementals.

Not quiet. I see it as follows: When the tape jobs runs, detect that the backup job has a week's worth of incrementals on disk, and have the tape job inject those incrementals on the fly into the latest full on disk (Virtual Synthesised Full). No action to be taken on the files on disk, only read them. This is to not effect the Dedupe device with extra IO from rollinto origional vbk.

Example:
VBK1(Sun) - VIB1(Mon) - VIB2(Tue) - VIB3(Wed) - VIB4(Thu) - VIB5(Fri) - VIB6(Sat)
VIB7(Sun) - VIB8(Mon) - VIB9(Tue) - VIB10(Wed) - VIB11(Thu) - VIB12(Fri) - VIB13(Sat)
VIB14(Sun) - VIB15(Mon)

So an ACTIVE FULL on the first of the month, then daily incermentals(27-30) until next months Active Full
Tape job runs on the Monday.
So on the first monday the tape will contain a single VBK that is syntesided from VBK1 and VIB1.
The second monday the tape job runs and it will contain a single VBK that is synthesised from VBK1 + (VIB1 to VIB8)
The third monday the tape job runs and it will contain a single VBK that is synthesised from VBK1 + (VIB1 to VIB15)
ie - The tape will always containthe latest up todate version of the origional job as a single syntesised VBK

Now this is the exact behavior of the Virtual Synthetic Full already. BUT it requiers the Backup to Disk job to be Forever Forward Incremental (No Synth Fulls Or Active Fulls) which is a killer on Dedupe Devices.

We want the Virtual Synthetic Full behaviour with Active Fulls enabled on the primary job.

Thanks for listening and trying to understand.
Nik

[nikpolini]

Also as I am reading between the lines, V9 should address most of these tape issues.
For my organisation I really really really hope they fix these issues / requests in v9 properly.
This includes for me the single latest VKB to tape
and the multiple drives per media pool issue.
If these are not fixed, we will be jumping ship.
Not tring to be diffucult, just trying to underpin how important these features are to us as clients...

Thanks you Veeam for a great product so far given its relative infancy...

[veremin]

So, right now, the "Virtual Synthesized Full Backup for Tape" is useless as it's taking up too much space on tape and storing also storing the useless older VBK. Useless being that I have two VBKs within each Backup Job and I am only interested in the latest VBK and VIBs.

Recreate a job, make it copy only latest portion of the existing chain. Enable "virtual full backup" to be performed on the desired basis. During initial run, only the latest portion of the chain will be copied, and, starting from that moment, virtual full backup will be created in accordance with the specified schedule. Thanks.

[Greg.Bean-DeFlumer]

The thing is, when the Virtual Full runs, it doesn't update the full already on the tape. When the virtual runs, it grabs the original full from the chain, plus the latest incrementals, calculates the virtual full, and writes it to tape. So every time the virtual full runs, it will create a new full on tape, not update the existing one.

What if you used Reversed Incremental in your source backup job? You'll have one full on disk, plus a chain of incrementals, and the daily source job will run incrementals every day. So if the tape job runs every week, and you only want one Full on tape, set the tape job protection to 'None' and have it create a new media set each time the job runs. Since the source job is reversed incremental, when the tape job runs, last week's full will be overwritten by this week's full on tape. Since the full is updated daily, you'll never NOT have an updated full on tape, so there wouldn't be a need for Synthesized fulls.

Would that work?

The only issue this method might cause would be you would have to rotate your tapes in such a way that the tape with the Full is always the tape being written to, but you would have the same problem if we COULD update the existing virtual full already on tape - you would have to rotate them in such a way that the tape with the Virtual Full was always the tape being written to. Since we don't actually update the virtual full on tape, using reversed incremental in the source job would achieve the same results.