suggestion needed for particular scenario

[pob579]

Hi,
situation:
15-20GB of data added daily to local VEEAM server storage.
This data is very well compressed when backing on tape.

Goal:
I want to have 2 tapes (LTO6) - one in a library, second one - off site weekly.

Each should contain all the data from the day 1 and add just new files to tape. (Previous days never change)
So, finally I should have an offsite tape with ALL the data that is in LOCAL storage backup folder, of course minus one week that is on the tape in the library

What I did:

Created a media pool and added 2 tapes.
Created a job pointing to the media pool.
Run first FULL backup. It worked fine.

What I think:

I guess that in order to achieve my goal, I have to disable FULL backup and Enable Incremental.
When one of 2 tapes will be removed from the library, first backup will be full on each tape and then when I will switch the tape, only new data will be added to the tape (missing week + daily backups during the week that tape will be in drive).

Is my thinking right? Also, there should be the option to not override the tape.
With a compression that I saw, the tape can contain easily 2 years of given data.

Thanks.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi pob,

Assuming a) you are rotating tapes every week b) you are performing File to Tape; with your current setup you will have the following:
Tape1: Week1_______Week3______so on...
Tape2: ______Week2______Week4...

To have an offiste tape with ALL data at ALL times, you will need additional F2T job with 2 Tapes with following setup:
Tape3: job settings -> Full Backup -> [x] Run the Full Backup automatically - On These Days: Friday 11pm.
Tape4: job settings -> Full Backup -> [x] Run the Full Backup automatically - On These Days: Friday 11pm.
Tape1 and Tape3 will be in the office, Tape2 and Tape4 will be offsite.

What will happen:
Week1: Full backup + daily increments on Tape1. On Friday Tape3 will have a dump of ALL data. During weekend, you bring Tapes1+3 offsite, take Tapes2+4 home.
Week2: daily increments continue on Tape2. On Friday Tape4 will have a dump of ALL data. During weekend, you bring Tapes2+4 offsite, take Tapes1+3 home.
Cycle continues.

Result:
- daily increments on Tape1 or Tape2 (whichever is local today)
- offsite tape with Full backup of all data, no matter what

Hope that helps!

[pob579]

Egor privet,
thanks for the explanation...
Before I will move to your scenario, I would like to ask again may be for a bit simpler scenario (sorry if it sounds "stupid" ).

What will happen if I will mark the job to pool of 2 tapes, as Incremental for 7 days.
I can create one Full backup manually for the start on each one.

Wouldn't Veeam B&R intelligently append missing/new data to the inserted tape.
It could happen that the tapes will not be rotated every week.
I don't care that one or 2 weeks will be missing on the offsite tape.

The most important thing for me is that missing data will be added on next scheduled time to replaced tape.

From your point of view would it work?

Spasibo.
Misha.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Misha!
Let's make it clear with the requirement first: those files you need to copy on the tapes - are those Veeam Backup files(vbk\vib) or plain files like a file share with documents?
Thing is Veeam has 2 features to copy data on the tape: Backup to Tape(which is meant for Veeam backup files) and File to Tape(which is meant to simply copy files on the tape).
Depending on that, we will pick right job type and right settings\schedule!
/Cheers

[pob579]

the files are regular windows files copied from Windows 10 to Veeam server local storage.

[Egor Yakovlev]

To simplify and have increments + full backups on the Tape1\2 at all times, you can just set existing media pool to "Full Backup: Monday 11pm", "Increments daily".
With this setting, each week starts with full dump of everything, plus daily changes for a week. During weekend you switch the tapes, and a new week with another tape starts with full again.
Sounds good?

[pob579]

Absolutely...
I just made full on each tape.
Removed one for offsite.

Set the job for incremental (only) every day.

Ideally, I don't want/need to run full backup, as one does exists from start on each tape.
I think (may be mistaken) that as soon as one tape of 2 with full backup is in the library only new (incremental) data will be added with the job configuration without full backup.

Is it correct thinking?
Of course I can test it. And if it will not do I will have to enable Full once a week. But in 6 month it will be waste of time and unnecessary mechanical use of drives for overriding FULL.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Correct.
You can also setup automatic overwrite policy on tape according to your needs.

[ejenner]

Hi guys,

I've got some tape backups configured. I recently bought a second set of LTO tapes with a plan in mind to rotate the tapes periodically so we always have a set of tapes which have been removed and are physically out of the system entirely.

At the moment I've configured two media pools. I have the first set of 24 tapes in the autoloader currently. I have the second set of 24 sitting outside of the autoloader.

I'm trying to think about the correct way to implement my strategy for rotating the tapes. I'm thinking if I want entirely separate standalone backups on two separate sets of tapes this will mean I'll have to create two backup job definitions for each backup task and set each job to write to the other media pool.

But having two jobs for each task seems clunky. Is there a more elegant way to implement this?

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi EJ.
Check posts above, it has same scenario with rotated tapes!
/Cheers!

[ejenner]

So are we saying one media pool containing all 48 tapes is preferable to two media pools? Even though half the tapes won't be in the pool at any given time? I guess the autoloader is going to load whatever tape is present in the library provided it isn't overwrite protected?

[Egor Yakovlev]

Correct.

Simple and easy - a single pool and correct settings on Full Backup on Day Z(tapes switch day). If you want more control over the pools, you can have 2, but will need some tuning with schedule, like here.

/Cheers!