Backup copy job, long run

[DaFresh]

Hello,

Here is the context : I have a VM of ~2To (2 hard drives, the OS one of 40Go and the data one of 2To) I would like to copy over a 8Mb/s link with a backup copy job (I am aware of backup seeding which I already use, but I would like to do this way with this one). The source backup is running in reverse incremental mode every week days with 60 retention points (~3 months). In the backup copy job, I set the sync interval period to 30 days (which is more than the theoretical time that could take the copy job to achieve the first full over the 8Mb/s link).

The copy job stops every week days when the daily backup start, this make senses because the data of the source backup are moving, right ?. It fails sometime too due to micro network outages, but seems to resume fine in the way no data are read anymore on the OS hard drive (~ 40Go), but only on the 2To drive, because I think the OS drive has already been copied on the remote target site.

My question is, did the copy job is resuming the copy of the data drive where it stops or start over on every retry ? I did not found any ways to diagnose that.

Thanks !

Cédric

[veremin]

The copy job stops every week days when the daily backup start, this make senses because the data of the source backup are moving, right ?

Correct.

My question is, did the copy job is resuming the copy of the data drive where it stops or start over on every retry ?

You mean the interval expired and backup copy job hasn't been able to copy a restore point? Or you're talking here about temporary networks drops, etc.?

Thanks.

[DaFresh]

Hello Vladimir,

You mean the interval expired and backup copy job hasn't been able to copy a restore point? Or you're talking here about temporary networks drops, etc.?

Yes it's about network drops, the jobs fails for 2 reasons :

- networks drops (error is something like "remote connexion has been closed")
- daily backup run at 20PM (error is "operation canceled by user")

Did the job copy will succeed ?

Thanks

[veremin]

The interrupted increment will be incomplete and, thus, unusable. However, during next cycle a backup copy job will transfer missing blocks and newly occurred changes. Thanks.

[DaFresh]

So if I understand, any interrupts (network drops or daily backup job run) will breaks the hard drive being "copied", and if there are no previous valid backup, Veeam will need to start over ?

As it is a copy and the data on the source target backup do not change, I would expect that Veeam resume the copy where it stops, but apparently I were wrong.

Any related feature in the upcoming release ?

Thanks,

Cédric

[foggy]

Perhaps you did not get Vladimir right. The backup copy job will actually resume data transfer during the next sync interval, copying all the blocks required to build the new restore point corresponding to the VM latest state (those that were not copied due to connection drop plus the changes occurred between the last source restore points). Previous restore point (the one the connection drop occurred on) though will be left in incomplete state.

[VladV]

If the connection drops are short, then VBR will retry the job without the need of waiting for a new backup cycle and it will continue from were it left off even if it were in the middle of transmitting a disk. It will retry the job 5 times before failing it.

[DaFresh]

Hello Foggy,

Thanks for the help. Yes I understood that on next sync interval, only the delta between the new source restore point and the target are copied, even if the job fails before, but this is not the context here, because I only want to copy a full backup of the same restore point, this is why I set the sync interval to 30 days.
My English is not fluent, so I will try to reformulate my question.

From the Veeam documentation :

"Synchronization Intervals
When creating a backup copy job, you should specify its synchronization interval.
The synchronization interval is a time span in which the backup copy job must copy a VM restore point from the source backup repository to the target backup repository. When a new synchronization interval starts, Veeam Backup & Replication checks if a new restore point is available on the source backup repository. In case a new restore point is found, Veeam Backup & Replication copies it from the source backup repository to the target backup repository. Note that the duration of the synchronization interval affects the restore point selection process. To learn more, see Restore Point Selection.
You can specify the synchronization interval in minutes, hours or days."

My comprehension is that until the sync interval is reach, the copy job try to copy, from the backup source, the same restore point of selected VM.

So the question is, during this interval where the sync dead line is not reached, did the copy job would succeed to copy a 2To virtual hard drive even if there are multiple retry (caused by network drops and/or traditional daily backup) ? did the copy job start over on each retry of the same restore point or did he resume the previous one ?

Thanks

[veremin]

So the question is, during this interval where the sync dead line is not reached, did the copy job would succeed to copy a 2To virtual hard drive even if there are multiple retry (caused by network drops and/or traditional daily backup) ? did the copy job start over on each retry of the same restore point or did he resume the previous one ?

Once the reversed incremental job has finished its cycle (that interrupted a backup copy job), the backup copy will continue copying data from the place where it has previously left. Thanks.

[DaFresh]

Ok nice, so it seems that if I let him run during a month or so, it will finish at the end.
I will keep up you up to date.

Cheers

[veremin]

Ok nice, so it seems that if I let him run during a month or so, it will finish at the end.

Yes, it should. Let us know, if something goes in unexpected way. Thanks.