Tape out of Backup Copy

[nunciate]

This may seem a bit like overkill and I agree it is but my company policy is to backup to disk in production, replicate backups to DR and tape out in both locations.
So wondering if anyone is doing this Also I want to vet my solution.

I am already backing up to disk in production and taping out daily with great success. I am also running backup copy jobs on my B&R server in production to send all my data to a CIFS share in DR. That seems to work OK most of the time with occasional backup copy failures/retries.

I guess my question is how would I tape out in DR. I have a Veeam B&R server in both locations. The B&R server in production only does backups and backup copies. The DR B&R server only does replication of production VMs from Prod to DR. I am guessing I can simply create backup repositories on my DR server and point them to the locations where I have been doing my backup copies too. Then I could setup tape jobs for those repositories and set the schedule to send to tape as new backup files appear. Do you think that would work? I still have to get my tape library shipped to DR before I can test but thought I would post here and see what others think.

One concern I have is that way Veeam imports backup when you add a repository. On my DR server when I create the repository pointing at my backup copy shares it will import the backups it finds. I am wondering if I will have to rescan the repositories so that Veeam knows there are new backups in the folders. I suppose I could write a script to do that every so often throughout the day.

[veremin]

From my perspective, there are two ways how your goal can be achieved. You can either you use either "dummy" backup job in conjunction with backup to tape job or file to tape job, instead.

1) Create a "fake" backup job in remote site. Point it to the files produced by backup copy job. And use this backup job as a source for backup to tape job.

2) Use file to tape job, pointing it to the files produced by backup copy job.

Two major concerns are:

1) Once the retention period of backup copy job is exceeded, the full backup starts to be moved forward on daily basis ("transformation"). Therefore, each day new full backup will be copied to tapes.

2) Since both backup servers are unaware about each other, it might happen that both will try to access one file at the same time. So, in order to be on the safe side, I'd recommend writing a simple script that will check the state of "source" backup copy job, and start backup to tape/file to tape job, only if the state isn't equal to "Working".

Thanks.

[nunciate]

I think the file to tape job may work the best so that I can get an incremental tape out each day and a full on the weekend. Assuming I can backup only the VIB files during the week and then the VBK on the weekend. If I backup only the VIB files during the week will those be restorable/usable in the event of a disaster. My thought is that if my VBK is being transformed everyday like you said then maybe the VIB becomes useless the next day and if I don't have the VBK for each day I would not be able to restore anything from those files.

Thoughts?

[foggy]

My thought is that if my VBK is being transformed everyday like you said then maybe the VIB becomes useless the next day and if I don't have the VBK for each day I would not be able to restore anything from those files.

VIB is not useless until it is merged with the VBK by retention (i.e. it always can be applied to the latest VBK).

[nunciate]

Thought I would follow up on this thread. Now that we have Veeam 8.0 installed and I can control my remote DR tape library from my main server here in production I am changing my setup.
I now have all of my jobs located on the server here in production. I have backup copies running all of my data to the DR server. I also have the remote tape library controlled by my server here.
I have regular backup to tape jobs (not file to tape) and I am using a source as the backup copy job. It appears things are running fine. I did a backup, a backup copy and set the tape out to begin when new files appear.

That is working fine right now and my tape out is running a full today since this is a new job. I will be interested to see if the tape out job continues to do a full each day or if it is able to pick up the daily incremental instead.

I have a feeling it is still going to do a daily full once the retention period of 2 restore points is met. I don't see any new options in the backup copy job that allows me to control when the synthetic full roll up occurs so I can only assume it will happen everyday as usual.

I thought I remembered reading that this functionality was going to be in Veeam 8.0 but I don't see it.

[veremin]

That is working fine right now and my tape out is running a full today since this is a new job. I will be interested to see if the tape out job continues to do a full each day or if it is able to pick up the daily incremental instead.

New synthesized full backup functionality should help you to avoid situation when full backup is being transferred on daily basis. However, this functionality won't work, unless a backup copy job has retention longer than 3 restore points.

Thanks.

[Dima P.]

And in current release synthesized full backup would work only if you enable both full and incremental backup processing to tape.

[nunciate]

I updated all of my backup copy jobs to have 4 restore points. I will see how that goes and post my results. All tape out jobs have a Full and Incremental Pool selected and a specified day for the Full backup to tape.

[nunciate]

My backup jobs have been running for a bit now and it does appear that the daily incremental backup copies are being processed to tape properly. I am still taping out some full backups from the weekend but things look good at this point.
Changing the backup copy jobs to keep 4 restore points seems to be the thing to do.

[veremin]

As stated in the Release Notes, backup to tape job will create a full backup each time, if source backup copy job has retention less 4 restore points. Thus, be aware to specify retention >= than 4 restore points. Thanks.