Backup Copy job with one restore point

[TWBrowning]

For some of our non-critical virtual machines we take a full back up once a week at head office, and up until now have scripted a copy the resulting files across the WAN to a remote site, keeping a single restore point at each site.

Despite being non-critical these VMs take up a lot of space, so we can't really afford to keep multiple restore points.

I'd hoped that with Veeam version 7 I could switch to a Backup Copy job (meaning I can ditch the scripts I use to retain the single restore point, and so on) but when setting up the job it only offers to let me keep 2 restore points minimum.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this a known limitation of Backup Copy jobs?

[foggy]

Yes, backup copy job always keeps at least two restore points. Though, as the job is incremental, the second point always contains only changes occurred since the full one, so should not consume a lot of space.

[TWBrowning]

Any particular reason why the minimum is 2? From our perspective one is enough for these VMs.

I'm not sure what the change is for these VMs between a backup one week and the next... I guess we'll find out.

Are the restore points in a backup copy job per-interval, or would a full and an incremental backup at head office that occurred in the same backup copy interval count as two restore points at the remote site?

If the latter then we could get around this limitation by kicking off an incremental backup at head office immediately after the full one. That way the second restore point at the remote site would be tiny.

[foggy]

Any particular reason why the minimum is 2? From our perspective one is enough for these VMs.

This is due to how transform works while applying retention settings in backup copy job. Having additional restore point ensures at least one restore point remains valid in case of incremental transfer failure.

Are the restore points in a backup copy job per-interval, or would a full and an incremental backup at head office that occurred in the same backup copy interval count as two restore points at the remote site?

Restore points are per interval, only the latest state is copied during each interval.

[TWBrowning]

Fair enough, thanks.

[Jim]

Are there options to keep all restore points as the "backup copy" job source repository? The idea is to be able to select the same number of restore points in "backup job" target repository to verify each backup (full & incremental). Thanks in advance.

[foggy]

Are there options to keep all restore points as the "backup copy" job source repository? The idea is to be able to select the same number of restore points in "backup job" target repository to verify each backup (full & incremental).

I'm not sure I understand the verification aspect of your question, however regular backup job and backup copy jobs have independent retention settings, so this is not possible.

[Jim]

We have a backup job with 10 restore points so far and need to create a backup copy job to copy all these 10 restore points to a third site. I don't seem to find options to copy all existing 10 restore points in Backup Copy job settings. Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, that's correct. Be aware that backup copy job doesn't copy backup files, it synthetically creates required restore points in the "target" location using VM backup data stored on the source site. You can either sync the entire repository/jobs (within the configured synchronization interval) or pick up individual VMs from the existing files.

[veremin]

We have a backup job with 10 restore points so far and need to create a backup copy job to copy all these 10 restore points to a third site

As mentioned, backup copy job creates one restore point per copy interval. So, you will have to wait some time, until new 10 restore points will be created by "source" backup job, and, then, copied by backup copy job.

If you want to copy the existing chain as is, then, the file copy job would be the way to go.

Thanks.

[Jim]

Thanks for the update. It doesn't seem "file copy" jobs have WAN Acceleration feature. Will WANAcc be added to "file copy" job settings in future release? For now, here is what we plan to test,

1) frequent incremental backups of a database server
2) enable "backup copy" job to leverage WANAcc to a third site to verify latest restore point
3) enable "file copy" job to leverage Riverbed to a forth site to verify each incremental backups

[foggy]

We're planing to expand WAN acceleration to replication jobs, however no plans for file copy jobs currently.

[dgatta]

Hello

is it possible, in a Backup Copy Job, to set only one restore point ?
in the step-by-step procedure to create a Backup Copy Job if I set "1" as value in restore point field, it is reset to "2".

it is bizarre to have one "primary" Backup Job with one restore point and the relative Backup Copy Job with two restore point....

[SSR]

Hi Folks,

I have created a backup copy job. The job itself is around 4TB, and all I want is a single copy of the job because there isn't enough space for two copies. The job won't allow me to have less than 2 restore points.

Is there any alternative way to achieve this so I just have a single copy?

There's several files on the target infrastructure, one VBK file that's slightly over 4TB, a temp file that's slightly under 4TB, two VIB files that are around 250GB, and a VBM file that's around 500kB. Perhaps I can get rid of some of these?

Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Mark,

If you want to copy a job only once, then you can use file copy job for that. Please be aware that backup copy does not copy a backup file, it synthesizes it from the data blocks of the source file. In other words, you can sync only a few VMs from the source backup file with the DR location. Because of these reasons, it is not possible to set less than 2 restore points for the job.

Thanks!

[SSR]

Would that just be a one off job though?

What I'd like to be able to do is create a weekly archive of all Veeam's jobs, that overwrite each week. I'd like to be able to automate that once a week. Would a File Copy job still do that?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, it will do that, but file copy job doesn't have any retention policy settings, thus you need to remove the entire backup set manually and then trigger file copy job again. If I were you, I would use backup copy job (with copy every 7 days interval). This approach would give you change tracking and automatic retention policy handling.

[SSR]

I've tried the backup copy job, but it won't let me go below 2 restore points, so it seems to create 2 copies which then means there isn't sufficient space. Is there something else I need to do?

[Vitaliy S.]

You either need to free up some more space, or use file copy jobs and make sure you delete these weekly archives before initiating another run of the file copy job.