Full backups with per VM backup file

[P0ll@rd]

Hi everyone!

I have a simple use case that I cannot find the best way to proceed :
My customer backs up VMs every day on disk with synthetic full on friday night, repository is set with "per machine backup file". He wants to copy on tape everyday and export tapes every weekday. He has a library with 4 drives and wants to use only one for incremental and 4 for the full. So I created a Backup to tape job with 2 media pool : "Incremental" without parrallel proceesing on tape and "Full" with parralel processing sets to 4 drives.

All is OK for the major time but when new VMs are added on a week days, several full tapes are needed to export theses VMs on full media pool (up to 4 tapes)... Is there a way to manage this behaviour ? Something like write on full media pool on friday night only or not to copy full backups on weekdays ?

I cannot use the same Media pool for Incremental and full because I want to set different parrallel processing on tape for incremental and full.

I hope I am clear with my explanations...

[Dima P.]

Hello Benjamin,

Unfortunately there is no way to achieve your goal:

1. You can combine incremental and full media pool, but that will lead to the same processing options for both fulls and incrementals.
2. You can use GFS media pools and keep incrementals in daily media set and fulls in weekly media set, but full backups for newly added VMs will occasionally land to daily media set.

[P0ll@rd]

Thank you very much for your answer. I came to the same conclusion. So I negociated with my customer and he changes tapes only ones per week (on friday morning) and writes everyday on 4 tapes with only one media pool for Full and Incremental.

[Dima P.]

Benjamin,

Thank you for the update - sounds like a perfect plan!