Will server skipped in active full be included in tape job?

[pshute]

We run weekly active full backups and nightly incrementals. Last night's full backup skipped one server of about 20.

Tonight the backup to tape will run. Will the skipped server be backed up on tape, or will it only include the servers in last night's active full backup?

[Dima P.]

Hello Peter,

Any error or warning displayed in the job log? Thanks.

[pshute]

The error in the backup job for that server was:

Failed to prepare guest for hot backup. Error: Cannot upload guest agent's files to the administrative share

That error has been dealt with in another forum (server was out of disk space). 0.0 bytes were transferred for that server during that backup, and 1.4TB were transferred for the entire backup.

During last night's backup to tape job, there were no errors, and 1.4TB were transferred, so I'm guessing if we ever had to restore from this tape, the server in question would be missing from it. The equivalent tape job last week was 2TB.

Are there any job options that could have got the missing server included in the tape job? We have "Process latest full backup chain only" enabled. I assume disabling that would have included the previous active full and the subsequent incrementals, which would have included the missing server, but we don't have room on the tape for that.

[Dima P.]

Sorry for the delay.

Are there any job options that could have got the missing server included in the tape job?

It's pretty straight forward, if a new backup file was created by VM backup job, backup to tape should recognize the new restore point and write it to tape.

]We have "Process latest full backup chain only" enabled.

This option skips all backup chain till the very last one, so it should not affect the latest restore point.

I'm guessing if we ever had to restore from this tape, the server in question would be missing from it.

Can you check this specific tape media properties? It should reflect all the restore points.

[pshute]

Im fairly confident the most recent backup got copied to tape, but that backup had one server missing from it because of a backup failure. The most recent backup of that server would be in the previous days backup, which I assume would be excluded from the tape job.

Can you please confirm thats how it works? Or does it somehow synthesise a best effort full backup?

[PTide]

Can you please confirm thats how it works?

If archive incremental backup is not enabled in job settings, and no full backup has been performed during the last run, then there is no way how the server could get to tape. However, if you configured the backup to tape job to copy incrementals as well, then it would copy all new backup files that have appeared since last run, i.e. VIBs only, since VBK is missing.

Or does it somehow synthesise a best effort full backup?

Veeam is able to synthesize full backup our of incrementals during backup to tape job run if the source backup job works in a forever-forward incremental mode, i.e. the chain does not containg active or synthetic fulls.

Thanks