Backup Copy GFS 'Read the entire restore point from source."

[crazycommando]

I have a question about the new v9 BackupCopy GFS feature of' Read the entire restore point from source backup instead of synthesizing it from increments'.

I understand this feature assists greatly with dedupe devices and in our case a StoreOnce.

With the new synthetic full improvements of StoreOnce catalyst + Veeam 9, this new feature may not be needed?

Thoughts? Experiences? Hope this makes sense. Thanks.

[foggy]

If you're satisfied with backup copy merge performance, you may not need to enable this check box.

[Tibo]

I'm on Veeam Standard Edition so I don't have the Catalyst procotol support nor the Per-VM backup chain.

If I enable this option, will it be used also for the non-GFS backup copy chain ?

I want to avoid the excessive I/Os on the storeonce appliance when merging the full with the oldest increment. If not, is there a way to avoid the forever incremental merging on the StoreOnce Appliance ?

Please let me know if my questions are not clear enough.

[dellock6]

Tibo,
you cannot enable features that are not available for your edition.

[Gostev]

@Tibo yes, this option will be the way to go for you to avoid excessive merge I/O.

@Luca actually, this option is available in Standard edition too.

[dellock6]

@gostev so the edition comparison doc is wrong. I don't have standard deployed in my lab and the doc says "per vm chains for deduplication appliances" (not sure are the correct words as I'm on mobile right now) and is listed only for ent and ent+.

@tibo sorry for giving you a wrong information

[Gostev]

Luca, this thread is about Backup Copy Active Full feature (as per title).

[Tibo]

@gostev Thank you for your answer. Keep up your weekly edito it's a great source of information and a nice way to start my workweek

@luca that's fine. My question could be easily misinterpreted. Edition comparison is right. Per-VM backup chain are for enterprise editions only. However, the "read the entire restore point from source" is available in every editions.

I still have hard times figuring out how this option can avoid the storeonce to go crazy when the full backup is merged with the next increment to comply with the standard retention (non-GFS). I will definitely try it though and see how it goes.

I thought I may be able to workaround and avoid the merging by using standard retention of more than a week + a weekly GFS retention. In this setup, the oldest full may never be merged. It will only be deleted when expired. Am I right ?

[nefes]

With "read the entire restore point from source" option merge is never performed. It does create new increments and fulls according to your schedule, and only remove old increments when you have enough new ones to respect your retention.
Think of it as Incremental with Active Fulls retention on Backup job.

[Tibo]

thanks nefes. This is now very clear for me.

[fcompaired]

With "read the entire restore point from source" option merge is never performed. It does create new increments and fulls according to your schedule, and only remove old increments when you have enough new ones to respect your retention.
Think of it as Incremental with Active Fulls retention on Backup job.

Hi, This is my 2nd month with Veeam. My GFS Jobs will generate a Monthly backup on 3/31. Right now in my chain I have February Monthly backups and a few incremental which are not merging anymore since I enabled this new setting.
My GFS jobs are configured to save only 2 savepoints in the chain. I understand I will get more than 2 savepoints with the new setting enabled, but I don't have clear when will the monthly be created. Will it happen on 3/31?
I'm planning to enable my GFS jobs again today since ExaGrid gets busy if they run daily.

Thanks!

[fcompaired]

I'm Replying myself saying that on the date the Monthly is set to be created, the GFS jobs copies a full backup without merging any incremental. This is great.

[foggy]

Yep, with that option enabled, GFS restore points are still created according to the specified schedule. Retention for the regular chain works similar to the forward incremental mode.

[morrie_morrie]

Can I just but into this a little. I know it hasn't been added to for a while.

We have a StoreOnce and are limited to 14 incrementals in the chain with our version 3540.
I'm just re-configuring Backup Copy jobs with the Catalyst integration.

I understand if I have a normal Backup job, I can do a Synthetic full on a scheduled basis.
What I need clarification on is, when doing a Backup Copy job with GFS turned on, do the Weekly jobs reset the Incremental chain?
If it does, then this will work for me, I can set the restore points to keep to 30 and the GFS setting will look after keep the chain down to 7 based on daily backups.

Does this make sense?

Andrew.

[foggy]

What I need clarification on is, when doing a Backup Copy job with GFS turned on, do the Weekly jobs reset the Incremental chain?

Only if you select the "Read from source..." check box, which switches the backup copy to a forward incremental-like backup (but will effectively re-transfer the entire data from the source repository).

[morrie_morrie]

Thanks Foggy.. That makes sense now.. I could see one job which wasn't coming up with the StoreOnce error about the 14 restore points, and didn't understand why..
Ok. I'll try checking the box and see what I get.

Andrew.