Suggestions?

[jcalvetm]

Posted this on Tape because I found about these issues when configuring Tape backups.
Sorry I have not found other ways to publish a suggestion to Devel Team.

1 - Backups can be chained (Schedule - After this job...). This is great unless you need to add more than one backup to your (in this case) tape backup. If two backup jobs run in parallel and both of them are to be added to tape (you have only a single standalone tape drive) Which one do I choose?. If a backup job could be chained to two backup jobs (or more), tape job could be scheduled after both (or more) disk job had ended. That would avoid time calculations or problems due to changes in backup timings.

2 - A solution could be schedulling "as new backups appear". Here is my new problem: I have my system working: 7 servers that are copied into my repository with 8 days retention using Forever incremental. But not still on tape because... delivery problems, no time to install or hardware technician is ill and tape drive is still in the box or the wrong one or a broken one was received. The thing is that there are 7 servers * 8 restore points and we need a synthetic full every day... When tape drive is installed I configure my tape job, runs for the first time and... 7*8 = 56 backup objects appear to be copied to tape!. I need only the last one. Yesterday night, not all 8 days for all servers and the following ones on the days to come.
It would be great to add a check "Consider only backups from..." and a start date or "First time run - only copy last one."

3 - Thing I found with forever incrementals and backup jobs scheduled as "new backup appear". If source backups for tape have finished before 0:00h and backup tape starts after 0:00, simply tape job does not "see" them. (I was told this in case #05409326). It would be great to set the "starting detection point" in last backup's timestamp. I am losing precious time in the evening or early night having to wait for the next day.

4 - And what would be, not great, but super would be the posibility to add data in non expired tapes. Small customer with standalone tape drive. Manual tape change on weekdays -they do not work on weekends...- Copies in tape are Synthetic full Monday to friday (new tape every day), but as long nobody is there to change tapes on saturday and sunday and to avoid a full tape, saturday and sunday incrementals are stored in friday tape . If retention is activated -in order not to erase yesterday's tape if operator inserts the wrong tape-, saturday and sunday are left "Waiting for tape"... because friday's retention avoids adding data.

Maybe I am wrong an there are easy ways to solve these things... but still I haven't found.

These are some of the things I have tought about in my first month with Veeam B&R.

Thanks

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums. As this is the R&D forum, it's the right place to suggest changes to the product

1)

Backups can be chained (Schedule - After this job...)

"can", but this should only be used for corner cases. In general it's not recommended to chain jobs, because if something in the chain fails, then all jobs in the chain fail. And it has the most inefficient resource usage. Scheduling jobs to 20:01, 20:02 and 20:03 tells the scheduler to run three jobs in that order. No need for job chaining in most cases

2)

and we need a synthetic full every day

why? Are you really using backup jobs with Forward Incremental with synthetic full set to "daily"? There are some corner cases to do that, but it's not a normal use-case. And in 3 you write "forever incremental"

3) I don't speak Spanish, so I cannot really say anything about the case.

4) Sounds like you ask for the media set settings to continue the current media set?

Overall I could not follow what you configured and what the goal is. If you could tell us what the goal is, then I can give a suggestion.

Best regards,
Hannes

[jcalvetm]

Code: Select all

 if something in the chain fails

If Job A always end first and Job B always ends later, no problem: Job C can be chained to Job B. (or time can be calculated to schedule jobs)
But may happen that Job B ends first and Job A ends later (ex. a big data download or a newly appeared .vhd...). Then Job C is launched before Job A has finished and job B is still working...
That used to be a mess in programs I have always known.

The case:

- Small customer. Office with less than 20 people. Three physical servers plus some VMs.
- No IT person on premises.
- Standalone tape drive. No cloud. No Tape library changer.
- Tape is changed by an employee (No IT). Only knows how to press button to extract tape and how to insert tape.
- Work hours Mo to Fri. Sat and Sun nobody at the office.
- To solve problem "of Sat-Sun no tape change", I program a full synthetic to tape Mo to Fri and I store incremental for Sat and Sun on Friday tape.
- Office hours are 08:30 to 18:00. There has to be somebody there to change the tape, so my tape backup ending window must be in office hours. If tape job ends after closing time, tape is not changed.

Customer Request:
Every tape must have "everything" inside -That's because of full synthetic-. Everything has to be recovered from a single tape.
Daily tape with alternate weeks (two sets Mo to Fri, week odd, week even: 10 tapes). It is old fashioned, but so far, is what they want.

Yes... my mistake. Disk jobs are Forever incremental to a local disk in Veeam Server (still getting used to terminology)
Then Synthetic full to tape.

I can manage with a "as new backups appear" in Tape job Schedule. This is why I have to wait to 0:00 to launch disk backups.
If backup timestamp is prior to 0:00 and tape job launches after 0:00, tape job says "No backup files found". No backup on tape. (What they told me in the referring case)

Even more:
Manual tape changes are not acknowledged by veeam. If somebody press the eject button, extracts tape and inserts a new one... "Houston We have a problem".
First: Veeam still sees old tape (even though unit is empty). So next backup will be "waiting for tape"
Second: If tape is brand new and has not been erased using Veeam, Veeam reports it as 0 bytes capacity and backup rests there "Waiting for tape".

I solved this with a powershell script, scheduled in Windows Task Scheduler, that inventories and erases the tape before Job is launched.


Another subject:

Thing about first run is because in another place we set up a tape changer. Veeam has been installed there for some time and we have a history of backups in repo.
I configure tape job, I launch it and it finds: 7 servers x 8 days persistence = 64 elements.
I just want to store "last one". From today on... Only because tape is slow. 64 (full) backups is an eternity... taking into account that next night a new one will appear...
Don't know why... because my other copy does not find yesterday's ones!!

Maybe I am facing everything from a "very classic" (yes... old fashioned. First PC's I worked with had 256Kb -not a typo- and things called Winchester Disks 10Mb -also not a typo- and ST-506 disks... ).

As always suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks for your attention
(Sorry for typos and mistakes...)

[HannesK]

Hello,

to solve problem "of Sat-Sun no tape change", I program a full synthetic to tape Mo to Fri

I would use the scheduler and say on "weekdays" or "on these days"

Yes... my mistake. Disk jobs are Forever incremental to a local disk in Veeam Server (still getting used to terminology)
Then Synthetic full to tape.

that sounds good

If somebody press the eject button, extracts tape and inserts a new one... "Houston We have a problem".

is "Eject media upon job completion" not working?

Not sure I got the other subject. It might be "per job chains" vs "per-machine backup files" setting on the repository

Best regards,
Hannes

[jcalvetm]

Sorry for the delay. Busy day yesterday.

My "situation" is that I could estimate backup finishing times, but "things may happen":

Normal (your servers behave and make your day): Launch Job A and Job B. The finishing order is -normally- Job A then Job B arround a certain hour. then I can calculate a security margin and schedule Job C (Tape). (Happy sysadmin)

Not normal (whimsical servers hate you): Today, Job A gets stuck and finishes after Job C's starting hour. This is a situation with a lot of variables which I don't know how to control. (Stressed sysdamin)

This is because I would like to chain with more than one job: I am interested in tape job starts only when Jobs A and B are completely finished, independently of completion times.
The other option is using "As new backup files appear". Jobs A and B may finish whenever they want and Tape job will pick up new files and store them in tape (Happy sysadmin)

But there is the timestamp issue: if Jobs A and B timestamps are monday's evening - night and tape job gets launched tuesday just after midnight, the result is "No backup files found".
(This is what one of the things that case was about).

Case citation (translated):

example:

For the machine 192.168.100.221 on the 21th:
-Process starts
21.05.2022 04:33:23] Info [CTapeVmTaskBuilder] Building source storages for task Backup XXX-server -XXXmail XXX-web - 192.168.100.221 has been started

-Checks virtual fulls and searches for restoration points:
[21.05.2022 04:33:23] Info [CTapeDailySynthesizedBackupCalendarSpecifics] Virtual full backup dates between 21/05/2022 0:00:00 and 21/05/2022 4:33:23: 21/05/2022 0:00:00

As you see, (Veeam) searches for restoration points between 00:00 and the moment in time when backup is finished. (Veeam) does not find them because filename and metadata for that incremental backup at the source was created on the 20th. Problem is that for the 20th, the restoration points search was made and restoration point was created.

- (Veeam) does not find restoration points created on this date and generates an incremental backup, because it does not happen that new restore points appeared at the source:
[21.05.2022 04:33:23] Info [CTapeSynDateAnalyzeResult] No candidates were found. Details: Tape backup was not created for 21/05/2022: there are no new restore points between 21/05/2022 and 21/05/2022

My suggestion is that there would be great to overcome this little inconvenience (for example keeping control of the time of last file copied to tape and setting this timestamp as the starting point for new searches). That would allow me to schedule backup jobs at (for example) 19:00 hours and use the five hours until midnight.
Or at least set a custom starting time...


Thing about tape ejection is that tape is not to be automatically ejected every day. Saturday and Sunday has to say in the drive. If is ejected, no copy on weekends.
As fas as I know, tape can be ejected after the tape job completion, but can not be scheduled.

The other thing is tape insert. Even though tape is ejected, I need to tell veeam that a different tape has been inserted. This is made inventorying the unit which is a manual process.
I solved this using a scheduled task running a powershell script, inventorying and erasing the tape.
Erasing is because persistance is set on a tape basis. If I set a 8 days protection time it would be ok for Mo to Fri tapes. But Saturday and sunday would be kept waiting, because the inserted tape is Friday's and its protection time has not expired. This is why I have to erase them by myself with the only problem of the "absent minded" operator who forgets to change tapes. But "Pobody's nerfect".

I am working on shortening times. When possible I will reformat the repository drives. Also I have been told that new hadware is coming (Happy me)

Best regards