Background retention of orphaned backups (former Backup Copy legacy jobs)

[Seve CH]

Hello

Is there a way to know which retention will be applied to orphaned jobs?

I am testing in a lab the job migration/update from the legacy backup copy jobs to the "modern" version with per-VM metadata.

During the process:
- The old backup job will be deleted
- The backups will be moved automatically to the "Disk (Orphaned)" node
- A new job will be created and using backup mapping, a synthetic full will be created (as our repo is XFS, block cloning will be leveraged, so no extra storage will be needed).

Until that point, it is fine. But now I have an orphaned node and I have no idea which retention applies to which files. "Former job settings" is of not help there, because the former job doesn't exist anymore. We can document it, but it is quite unpractical and difficult to prove the backups won't disappear automatically tomorrow.

Is there a way to see the retention settings for orphaned backups? Ideally using Veeam's official way (GUI or PowerShell). The DB is PostgreSQL if there is no other option. The former backup copy job is periodic, days-based retention with GFS settings.

Best regards
Seve

[Dima P.]

Hello Seve,

But now I have an orphaned node and I have no idea which retention applies to which files. "Former job settings" is of not help there, because the former job doesn't exist anymore. We can document it, but it is quite unpractical and difficult to prove the backups won't disappear automatically tomorrow.

Background retention is applied to any image-based backup (i.e. VM backup or Agent backup) with daily retention set within the regular backup chain or with GFS retention, since it's possible to predict when such backup can be safely deleted unlike with restore point retention.

Is there a way to see the retention settings for orphaned backups? Ideally using Veeam's official way (GUI or PowerShell). The DB is PostgreSQL if there is no other option. The former backup copy job is periodic, days-based retention with GFS settings.

Possibly with Veeam One reporting? @jorgedlcruz , can you please help.

[Seve CH]

Hi Dima

I know that the retention is being applied daily by a scheduled task/job. But how can I see which retention applies to the orphaned files? But using immutable backups this should be an issue too: Which retention is really affected to each restore point?

If I go to the backup properties, I can see all restore points and under the column retention, some codes like R, M, MY, Y, etc.. But how long are they going to be kept...?

In my opinion, this should be some basic functionality not requiring additional products like Veeam One. If it is currently not possible, please consider this as a feature request for v.13 Maybe a column with "Expiration date..."?

Best regards
Seve

[david.domask]

Hi Seve CH,

Regrettably, there is not a means of returning this via Powershell at this time, even with unsupported methods.

We do have an Orphaned VMs report in VeeamOne, and that is going to be your best bet. It has a column for tracking retention on the orphaned backups.

With Powershell, the only way I can find would be doing direct queries to the DB, but it would require quite a bit of logic to make this usable/readable, so I do not advise this approach, use VeeamOne instead.

[Seve CH]

Hi David,

Thanks for your answer. We don't use Veeam ONE. Knowing when a backup will be deleted automatically (in a job or without a job) should be basic functionality . Please consider this as a feature request for v.13.

Best regards
Seve