Backup copy of backup copy for Agent not working

[Taroking1]

We are having trouble taking a backup copy of a backup copy - but just for Agent based backups. For our VM and HyperV jobs this is working fine.

Scenario
We have remote sites that back up to a local repo and Backup Copy to our central Datacentre site
We want to take some of those machines and copy them into our Lab (which is not in our central Datacentre site).
So the data flow is Remote>Central>Lab
We cannot just copy from Remote>Lab as we are already using a significant amount of the available WAN bandwidth for the remote sites.
We want to use Backup copy as there is continual need to restore certain production machines into our Lab and we need them to just be ready for restore as needed.

Results
1. Vmware jobs. Backup locally at remote site and Backup Copy to Central DC - working fine. Create another backup copy job to replicate specific machine from Central DC to Lab - working fine.
2. HyperV jobs. Backup locally at remote site and Backup Copy to Central DC - working fine. Create another backup copy job to replicate specific machine from Central DC to Lab - working fine
3. Agent jobs. Backup locally at remote site and replicate to Central DC - working fine. Create another backup copy job to replicate specific machine from Central DC to Lab - not working. Error is No restore points found.

Further troubleshooting
For the Agent based Backup Copy job that is not working, we initially thought we must not be selecting the correct source repo or something. I then added an additional agent based machine that is backed up locally in the Central DC to my lab replication job - it worked fine.

So my conclusion is that I cannot do a backup copy of a backup copy for an Agent job - is this correct?

[Mildur]

Hi Taroking

Yes, I can confirm that for Agent Backups this will not work.

In our next version we have simplified backup copy jobs. With the new job type, backup copy jobs of backup copies no longer works for vSphere and HyperV backups. If you rely on this feature, I recommend that you wait to upgrade your backup server to continue using this feature until it may be reintroduced in a future release.

Thanks
Fabian

[Taroking1]

Hi Fabian

That sounds disappointing.

What is the recommended way of doing this process in an automated way in V12?

[prbond]

Most Disappointing.
First time a useful function has been removed from Veeam.

[Mildur]

Hi @Taroking1

What's the bandwidth between Central datacenter and Lab datacenter? Can you leverage Instant Recovery sessions or the On-Demand Sandbox feature instead of doing a complete restore of a vm or agent backup?
For your vSphere VMs you could also use a "Replica from Backup Copy" replica job to replicate VMs from the backup copy job to the lab datacenter. You can use the On-Demand Sandbox feature to power on the replica vm on the lab datacenter. But probably that's not a solution if you need to restore VMs which are multiple days old.

Thanks
Fabian

[Taroking1]

Hi Fabian

The bandwidth from Central DC to LAB DC is 100Mb. Our bigger issue is that the Veeam Prod B&R server doesn't see into the Lab. Rather, it sees a Dedup appliance as a CIFS share on the prod side of the Firewall. That dedup appliance replicates the files into the Lab side of the firewall.

I am thinking I might have to just set up some robocopy scheduled tasks to copy the files I want onto the Dedup appliance CIFS share and just use QOS to manage the bandwidth. Not as elegant as using Veeam, but it will be automated and work when V12 comes as well.