Tape schedule Monthly only

[mlott@gie.com]

Using VBR 9.5 (not yet update1):

Our requirements are that we only need one backup to tape per month for each VM backup job. We are just getting started with a new autoloader and it appears to be working well. But I cannot figure out how to schedule just a single full backup. I was thinking this could be monthly while disabling the weekly and yearly backup, etc.

What I am currently thinking of doing is creating powershell scripts to perform one backup to tape per day. Each job schedule is otherwise disabled. Our current volume means that this should be finished within two weeks. The script starts here:

Add-PSSnapin VeeamPSSnapin
Connect-VBRServer -Server veeam.ser.ver

The next lines are all similar to this:

Start-VBRJob -Job "name of job" -RunAsync

However, it might make more sense to put them all into one script without the RunAsync switch:

Start-VBRJob -Job "job1" -FullBackup
Start-VBRJob -Job "job2" -FullBackup
Start-VBRJob -Job "job3" -FullBackup
...

That should allow for a continuous backup stream and be done in under a week. I don't know whether or not this will work. Also, do I need the FullBackup switch? Each job is currently set to backup only the most recent chain. These are all backups of VM backup jobs made to a DataDomain.

Maybe I am overthinking this. But, we really only need the one monthly backup as a just-in-case, i.e. total loss of servers and storage due to fire or other catastrophe.

[veremin]

What kind of jobs are you trying to archive to tapes? Backup or backup copy ones? In the former case, what mode do those jobs leverage? Forward incremental with periodic fulls, forward forever incremental, reversed incremental?

[mlott@gie.com]

They are all backup jobs (not copy jobs) of virtual machines which are daily incremental with weekly synthetic full. We really just want one restore point per month per VM host to be sent offsite. We keep 2 weeks of restore points onsite for each VM host backup job.

[veremin]

Create a backup to tape job, make it process only full backups, enable "process latest full backup chain only" option and set monthly schedule for it (preferably, day after synthetic full backup).

Being executed once a month such job will find latest full backups for all source jobs and archive those files to tapes.

Thanks.

[mlott@gie.com]

Schedule options do not seem to allow for disabling weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. You only get to pick which day for weekly, day of month or week for monthly, etc. So I guess I do need to run this manually or from task scheduler.

[Dima P.]

Miles,

allow for disabling weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.

Go to Media Pool settings and set the 'overwrite protection period' for needless media sets to zero.

[mlott@gie.com]

Thanks, Dima. Very nice.

[veremin]

Schedule options do not seem to allow for disabling weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. You only get to pick which day for weekly, day of month or week for monthly, etc. So I guess I do need to run this manually or from task scheduler.

Most likely you're using GFS media pool, meanwhile simple media pool is all you need in this case.