I've got a quick one. I am pretty green in IT and I was given a task to replace our current backup infrastructure with Veeam. Currently we are running backups only to tape. However we would like to continue working with tapes after moving to Veeam according to the 3-2-1 rule. So my question is would I be able to save daily incremental backups to disk and weekly fulls (active fulls that would be) to tape to save disk space? If this is technically possible would it make any sense doing so? Would I be able to restore anything if needed?
Okay thanks Vladimir for you response. Just to clarify I should be able create an incremental job with active fulls, then create a backup copy job to move the created full backup to tape and then delete the full backup from disk? What would happen to next week's increments if the full backup they refer to is on a different media, in my case tape.
Actually, I meant that VB&R provides disk-to-disk-to-tape backup. So, it's recommended to have a short chain at hand, and use tapes for long term retention.
If you delete full backup once it gets copied to tapes, the increments referring to it will be unusable and the subsequent runs of backup job will fail.
So, I'd recommend creating a backup job with 2 restore points as its retention, using either forward forever incremental or reversed incremental mode (as those are the most space conservative modes), and letting a backup to tape job copy corresponding full backup on whatever basis you want to.
I am also running into similar scenario soon, unfortunately I am new to backup operation and therefore I would like to learn how the related jobs should be created.
I am planning on creating a reverse incremental daily job from Mon - Thu and have Friday as Active Full. Restore point is set to 5. Backup Repo is a window share folder (LAN transport mode). This job will first run at night on a Friday.
If my concept is correct, each active full of Friday will contain the current week's incremental data. Therefore, on Saturday, I will have a File to Tape job which pulls yesterday's VBK file from the window share into tape. (File mask = *.vbk, or.. it's vrb? I forgot, but u get the point)
Question:
Since I believe that LTO4 can fit 4 Friday's VBK files, can I append these full backup file into 1 tape (4 VBK file in a tape that contain whole month backup data)?
Does 5 restore points on the daily reserve incremental job make sense if I do not want File to Tape job to pull the vbk which is more than 1 day ago (Yesterday was the latest Friday full backup) ?
If compliance requests for data retrieve from a week, is it correct if I just call the tape for that week and right click on the VBK file, then I can see the whole week data?
I am planning on creating a reverse incremental daily job from Mon - Thu and have Friday as Active Full. Restore point is set to 5. Backup Repo is a window share folder (LAN transport mode). This job will first run at night on a Friday.
Why do you want to run active full backup so frequently?
If my concept is correct, each active full of Friday will contain the current week's incremental data. Therefore, on Saturday, I will have a File to Tape job which pulls yesterday's VBK file from the window share into tape. (File mask = *.vbk, or.. it's vrb? I forgot, but u get the point)
The files to tape job executed on Saturday will copy two .vbks - active full backup and the latest point in reversed incremental chain that is always a full backup.
Why do you want to run active full backup so frequently?
Is a weekly Friday full backup too frequent? Considering restore process, particularly from tape, and if what i said in the previous post is correct, I can call the tape base on week. For example, if the requested data is within the weeks of Feb 2015 1st to 15th, I just call 1 tape with the vbks of those weeks as I said I assume that 1 LTO4 should fits 4 vbk file.
The files to tape job executed on Saturday will copy two .vbks - active full backup and the latest point in reversed incremental chain that is always a full backup.
ahh, i think i follow you. If I set the backup job with 5 restore points, and if I first run the job on a Friday, Veeam will automatically create a full backup every Friday, so I don't need to intentionally configure active full backup?
If you're willing to run a job in reversed incremental mode, then, yes. Running active full backup once a month or two is enough.
ahh, i think i follow you. If I set the backup job with 5 restore points, and if I first run the job on a Friday, Veeam will automatically create a full backup every Friday, so I don't need to intentionally configure active full backup?
We're currently doing incremental backups with synthetic full backups on Sunday. We aren't doing any Active full backups. I'd like to get a FULL tape backup twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. How should we have our disk backups configured to facilitate the tape backup needs?
I would recommend you to adjust your existing tape job schedule to run ‘as a new backup file appear’ (or possible after this job) and set the virtual full backup to tape (synthesized full backup) creation schedule on Tuesday and Friday.
No difference – its just two different events to start the backup to tape job, what to backup: source repository or disk jobs are selected on the backup files step.
In first case it will be started as soon as the new backup file is recognized in the repository (which might be good option for multiple tape jobs or the whole backup repository as a source at backup files step).
The second option will work right after the disk job is finished, so you may use it for chaining or to backup only certain backup files produced by the said disk job
I'm a little confused, so bear with me - We're currently doing incremental backups with synthetic full backups on Sunday.
I was also confused because you'd said initially that you were going to utilize reversed incremental daily job.
Anyway, you can stick to one of the options mentioned by Dmitry, but in either case additional full backup (synthetic full created on Sunday) will be copied to tape mediums. If you want to avoid that, consider switching your source backup job to forward forever incremental mode.
I still do not have the tape library here and so please help me verify whether the jobs I create meet my backup/restore strategy. Let me recap my job settings.
backup job: Reversed Incremental, run from Monday to Friday where Friday is the full
The backup job creates 4 VRB files from mon-thu, and 1 VBK file on fri on the source repository.
Therefore, theoretically each month VeeamB&R creates 20 backup files on the repository. Now.. I have the backup job retention period set to 5 and File to Backup job runs every Saturday.
The files mask I set is *.VRB and *.VBK. This will create something below
Week1 Mon-Fri: 4 VRB and 1 VBK
Week1 Saturday: File to Tape job copies the 4 VRB and 1 VBK onto tape
Run the backup and file to tape job four times to conclude the current month.
Assume that, the tape media I choose can store these 20 backup files. Therefore, each tape contains the backup of every working days for the current months. If I want to restore the data of a particular date of the current month I just call this month's tape media.
Sounds correct?
With the same logic above, would it improve the data size on tape media if I change the backup job to Forward Incremental, and do a transformation on Friday?
sirhideo wrote:With the same logic above, would it improve the data size on tape media if I change the backup job to Forward Incremental, and do a transformation on Friday?
No, even more increments will be copied to tape weekly (5 VRB's and 1 VBK).
