Tape Backup Source Data

[KenM]

Greetings all, while discussing a ticket (04575549) with Veeam support the other day, I was thinking of ways we are hindered in the backup process and by our network design, and would like to be able to see what the Forums thought are on specifying where the backup data is pulled from, in my case this would be for Tape jobs, but I'm certain it could apply to other scenarios as well.

Backup Environment: Two different locations Site A and Site B, with the Site A being home to the bulk of the live servers and "active" data pulled by Veeam during backup jobs. Site B is where the backups are kept on a different storage device along with the tape drive to write the data to as well. Running forward incremental backups with Active Fulls on the weekends, and Incrementals during the week. The data gets written to two media pools with different retention periods.

The problem: A weekly tape job ran immediately following the full backup jobs, runs an "active" backup pulling the data from the production storage, and in our case, across the WAN from Site A which slows the job down. If we schedule the job a day later, we now have a full + 1 incremental making it a "Synthetic" backup pulling the data from our backup storage that is local to the tape drive in Site B and substantially quicker, however it isn't the same set of full data that we captured over the weekend because it now incorporates incremental data from the following week.

Fix: Allow a tape job to be configured to backup only the most recent FULL backup data and none of any subsequent incremental data, and also allow for the source repository to be defined.

Thoughts?

[HannesK]

Hello,
I'm not sure I got your design. I understood the following:
- site A and site B are connected by a slow connection (seem irrelevant for the question)
- tape is located in site B
- production is in site A
- backup storage is in site B

if we schedule the job a day later, we now have a full + 1 incremental making it a "Synthetic" backup

what do you mean with "synthetic" backup? The backup to tape job just copies the existing VBK (and VIBs if configured) to tape

Fix: Allow a tape job to be configured to backup only the most recent FULL backup

when creating a tape job, it asks whether you want to copy the latest chain, or all backup files. Increments depend on your job settings.

and also allow for the source repository to be defined.

you can choose in the tape job "from repositories" https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100

Best regards,
Hannes

[KenM]

Thank you! The link to the article showing the "from repositories" option is spot on, and I had just not found it yet; locked into thinking the tape job had to be tied to the backup jobs themselves. Always something more to learn of course.

If could though, please point me to an article that shows information on "when creating a tape job, it asks whether you want to copy the latest chain, or all backup files. Increments depend on your job settings", because I'm wanting an option as I described, that ONLY backs up the fulls (VBKs) and not any incrementals (VIBs), even if they exist.

[HannesK]

the question only comes when you create the job. after that it's not relevant anymore, because the tape job only copies new data.

No incrementals is the default and configured in the "incremental backup" section of a tape job. https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100