Forward Incremental (with weekly Synth-Fulls) source Job with GFS-Tape-Job

[rleon]

Hi all,

For version 11, I'm not sure if I understand this correctly,
if I have a GFS Media Pool with only Monthly and Yearly Media Sets enabled (Ie: Daily, Weekly, Quarterly disabled),
and I have a GFS Tape Job that specifies the following Archival-Schedule for Fulls:

• Monthly Fulls: Last Day of each month

• Yearly Fulls: Last Day of January

Then, depending on whether the source Job produces Forever Forward Incrementals (including BackupCopyJobs without GFS),
or Forward Incrementals (Ie: backup-chain has Weekly Synthetic-Fulls, including BackupCopyJobs with GFS that produces Weekly-Synth-Fulls),
a GFS-Tape-Job behaves differently, as follows:

Case1: Source Job produces Forever Forward Incrementals, the GFS-Tape-Job will:

• Create Virtual-Full for Monthly, on exactly the Last Day of each month.

• Create Virtual-Full for Yearly, on exactly the Last Day of each January.

In both of the above, the Virtual-Full Restore-Point will contain data up to the Last Day of the month. (Or up to 1 day before, if "Process the most recent restore point instead of waiting" is enabled.)
The Daily, Weekly and Quarterly Media Sets will not be written to, because they are disabled in the GFS-Media-Pool.

Case2: Source Job produces Forward Incrementals, the GFS-Tape-Job will:

• Find the most recent Weekly-Synth-Full on the source disk to copy to Tape as Monthly, on exactly the Last Day of each month.

• Find the most recent Weekly-Synth-Full on the source disk to copy to Tape as Yearly, on exactly the Last Day of each January.

In both of the above, Virtual Full is not created. Instead, an already-made Full on the source disk is copied to tape.
This also means the Restore-Point of the Full that is copied to tape - in most months - will NOT contain data up to the Last Day of the month.
E.g.: A Full is written to Tape on Mar-31st, but its Restore-Point only contains data up to Mar-27th, because that's the day when the Weekly-Synth-Full was created in the source disk. The GFS-Tape-Job only copies it to tape on Mar-31st.

If my understanding of how this whole thing works is correct (see Case1&2 above), then what can I do to fulfill the following requirements given the conditions?

• Condition: Source Job produces Forward Incrementals (could be a BackupCopyJobs with GFS that produces Weekly-Synth-Fulls)

• Requirement1: GFS-Tape-Job's Monthly, specified as the Last Day of each month, should contain data up to the Last Day of the month.

• Requirement2: GFS-Tape-Job's Yearly, specified as the Last Day of each January, should contain data up to the Last Day of each January.

In other words, if the Monthly Restore-Point written to Tape on March only contains data up to Mar-27, then the requirement is NOT met, because the Restore-Point does not contain data up to Mar-30/31.

Thanks for your help again.
This is really confusing.

[Dima P.]

Hello RLeon,

Thank you for your post and sorry for the delay! For backup copy which runs in forever incremental mode latest restore point is always locked to the job logic, that applies to backup copy running in periodic mode. In such case, indeed tape job can pick the previous restore point for GFS full backup creation. For regular backup job the restore point for the set date should be selected for GFS full backup creation. If you confirm that this is not happening, please raise a ticket and share it with me. I'll ask QA team to check the debug logs to understand what's going on.

[rleon]

Hi Dima,

Appreciate the reply, no need for the apology!
I actually already raised a support (Case #04917105) asking for clarification about this whole logic with GFS-Tape-Job + GFS-BackupCopyJob.

Allow me to clarify some of your points:
>For backup copy which runs in forever incremental mode latest restore point is always locked
Yes I'm aware. But this thread is specifically asking about BackupCopyJobs with GFS-enabled (aka BackupCopyJobs in Forward Incremental Mode).

>For regular backup job the restore point for the set date should be selected for GFS full backup creation
When you say "regular backup job", you should be clear whether it is a "Forever Forward Incremental chain" or a "Forward Incremental chain" (Note: the latter could be a GFS-enabled-BackupCopyJob), especially when it comes to GFS-Tape-Jobs.
That is because, according to your documentation, a GFS-Tape-Jobs behaves differently depending on which type of chain it copies from.
As my opening thread post said, supposedly, a GFS-Tape-Job creates Virtual Fulls if the source is a Forever Forward Incremental chain,
but only copies existing Fulls (synth full or active full) if the source is a Forward Incremental chain. (Again, the latter could be a GFS-enabled-BackupCopyJob)
With a Virtual Full, which is a Tape Restore Point that contains data up-to, or 1 day before the write-to-tape-date, depending on if "Process the most recent restore point instead of waiting" is enabled,
it meets the requirement where the a Restore Point on tape should contain data up to the day (or 1 day before) when the GFS-Tape-Job runs.

So the Virtual Full mechanism meets the requirement, but what if the GFS-Tape-Job is NOT copying from a Forever Forward Incremental chain, but instead from a Forward Incremental chain such as a GFS-enabled-BackupCopyJob?
According to your documentation, when the source is not a Forever Forward Incremental chain, the Virtual Full mechanism does not happen, therefore the Tape Restore Point would not contain data up-to the write-to-tape-date (because it will only copy an older, existing Full from disk), the requirement is therefore not met.
Is there a workaround?
Sorry for repeating my thread question. I thought I'd try to rephrase everything in case of any misunderstanding.

>If you confirm that this is not happening...
At this point, we're in the planning phase with a customer. They are very specific about the on-tape Restore Points and wants to know exactly up-to-which-date one would contain data of.
But as it turned out, this is a very complicated question, and depends on if the source job is a "Forever Forward Incremental chain" or a "Forward Incremental chain", and that the latter could be a GFS-enabled-BackupCopyJob.
Note: They do plan to have a GFS-Tape-Job copy from a GFS-enabled-BackupCopyJob.