Tape Backup Configuration

[BKeane]

I'm a new Veeam customer using BaR8. I'm trying to configure my backups to tape to have a quarterlies that are retained for 7 years, monthlies retains for 2 years, and weekly incrementals of the monthly that we keep for just one month. I'm having some trouble getting my head wrapped around how to set this up. I could just use the monthlies and keep every fourth out of the tape library, but I'd like to utilize Veeam's Media Pools to manage retention and not an outside spreadsheet. Also, is it possible to tell the monthlies to not run if a quarterly has been run that weekend?

The tape jobs are using our daily backup to disks, but we need to be able to move backups offsite on a weekly basis incase of a major colo disaster.

Thank you,
Brenden

[Shestakov]

Hello Brenden,

We have a GFS retention policy for a demand like yours.
Also this topic can be useful in organizing the process.

Please get familiar with provided links and ask additional questions if you have any. Thanks!

[BKeane]

Please let me know if I'm understanding this correctly. I have 3 backup jobs running that are reverse incremental and copied to a disk. The job contains 30 restore points, spanning a month since they are running daily.

I setup 3 media pools; weekly (7 day retention), monthly (2 year retention), quarterly (7 year retention). I then created 3 backup copy jobs; weekly (Run every Friday), monthly (first Friday of the month), quarterly (4 months in the year selected and set to run the first Friday). They are using their respective media pools.

Am I correct that this will copy the vbk to tape at the beginning of the month (monthly pool), incrementals of the vbk each Friday (weekly pool), and the monthly full that is taken on the specified months for the quarterly will be put in the quarterly pool and retained for 7 years? I do not have the Process Incrementals selected on any Backup Copy job.

[veremin]

Are you running active full on regular basis? Say, once a month or so? If so, there might be situation where more than one backup will be present on disk and those full backups (not a single one) will be copied to tape mediums. However, you might switch your source jobs to forever forward incremental mode and utilize synthesized full backup. Thanks.

[BKeane]

I am running active fulls every 30 days, resulting in a couple of vbk's per set. When going through and creating the backup copy jobs, it indicated that it had detected more than one backup set and I selected to only use the latest. I'm assuming that will ensure only one vbk is copied?

[veremin]

You mean the backup to tape job, not backup copy one, right? If so, that question will be asked only during job creation - whether or not the job should copy only the latest independent portion of the chain or the backup chain as a whole. However, starting from that moment all new .vbk files will be transferred to tapes on monthly basis. Thanks.

[BKeane]

That's correct, it's a backup to tape job. I went in and edited the backup jobs I set for the tape job again, and it prompted me at that point.

[veremin]

Removing/Readding backup to tape job source might re-prompt the said window (selecting Backup Chains to Archive) indeed. So, you can stick to this approach if you want to. Thanks.