Backup cycles

[marky]

I created a new backup last Friday 20th June with a schedule for everyday @ 22:00 and set it to 5 day restore point with full backup weekly (Saturday)

Having just checked the files I've noticed no full backup for Saturday but there are for the 20th and 23rd June

Not sure that's right

[veremin]

Can you check the current full backup schedule (check both synthetic and active full schedules)? Also, can you confirm that no one has executed the job manually (right-click -> active full) or automatically (PS script)? Thanks.

[marky]

I can see 'Reversed' is selected but there also a tick in the incremental section under synthetic but would expect this not to apply since I have not selected incremental.

Active full backup is set to weekly, on selected days, Saturday.

No one would have touched anything but I do know I ran a backup immediately after creating the job, not sure if I started it or selected active full but I'd still expect there to be a full backup from the 21st

[veremin]

I can see 'Reversed' is selected but there also a tick in the incremental section under synthetic but would expect this not to apply since I have not selected incremental.

With the reversed incremental mode the latest restore point is always a full backup.

No one would have touched anything but I do know I ran a backup immediately after creating the job, not sure if I started it or selected active full but I'd still expect there to be a full backup from the 21st.

The full backup created during initial run must have been moved forward - this is the way reversed incremental mode works.

Also, according to the best practice, in case of reversed incremental mode you can run active full backup on less frequent basis, say, 1 to 3 months.

Thanks.

[nefes]

Let's describe step by step, what happened to you:
1. Friday 22:00. Initial full backup created.
2. Saturday 22:00. Active full created, Friday's backup stays in place.
3. Sunday-Tuesday. Reversed Incremental mode creates new full from yesterday's full and moves difference to vrb file.
So you end up with full from Friday, vrb-s from Saturday and Sunday and full from Monday.
According to your retention policy, at Wednesday 22:00 Friday's full will be deleted after backup run, since you will have 1 Wednesday full and 4 reversed incremental files from Saturday to Tuesday.

As Vladimir already said, it is worth setting Active Full less frequently so you will not have 2 fulls most of time.

[marky]

I was under the impression reversed incremental was simply what the incremental file consisted of, e.g. storage of changed data versus recording of changed data and what your backup repository is (disk or tape).

Still trying to ascertain why there is a full backup last night, maybe something to do with the 5 day restore point workings

It was only really a test to see how the restore points are cycled, because we want to try an replicate a 31 day backup cycle starting with a full > then incremental > period end (full).

[veremin]

Still trying to ascertain why there is a full backup last night, maybe something to do with the 5 day restore point workings

Is that the latest restore point in the backup chain? If so, the situation looks expected due to the reasons described above (latest restore point is always a full backup). Thanks.

[marky]

Ok, then I need to fully understand Veeams terminology then. I interpreted the restore points as the mixed number of restore files that were kept (incremental and full)

We wanted to try and replicate our current tape backup process that Veeam will be replacing which at the moment is spread over a 20 day (four week) system. Full backups Mon > Friday consisting of 4 tapes for each week day (e.g. Mon 1, 2, 3 and 4). Each Weds tape is kept off-site, weds turns into our period end tape.

We'll then use the day time hours to copy the data onto external hard disks and cycle like tapes, keep one disk for each month (full backup), then have and end of year (full backup)

[foggy]

Ok, then I need to fully understand Veeams terminology then. I interpreted the restore points as the mixed number of restore files that were kept (incremental and full)

Restore point is the particular backup file (either full or incremental) that allows you to restore to a particular point in time (provided that the backup chain is not corrupt and all the restore points it depends on are available).

[marky]

Restore point is the particular backup file (either full or incremental) that allows you to restore to a particular point in time (provided that the backup chain is not corrupt and all the restore points it depends on are available).

Yes I know what the restore points do but every time I read something to do with Veeam the picture gets cloudier and less clear. Quite frankly some of the explanations are clear as Mud and no help whatsoever.

So if I set a backup to keep 31 restore points would that equate to 31 days of inc/full if the backup is run every day?

What is the different between incremental and reversed (I read in a Veeam document reversed was what was stored in the inc file, now I read a host more other explanations)

Also, why is reversed recommend for disk!

I like veeam but compared to Backup Exec, trying to understand it is shocking!

[foggy]

So if I set a backup to keep 31 restore points would that equate to 31 days of inc/full if the backup is run every day?

Depends on the backup mode. With reversed incremental, yes, you will always have 31 daily restore points on disk in this case. With forward incremental mode, the number of restore points will vary from one day of the week to another.

What is the different between incremental and reversed (I read in a Veeam document reversed was what was stored in the inc file, now I read a host more other explanations)

Also, why is reversed recommend for disk!

Have you read this detailed explanation of backup modes? Here's also a good comparison of both modes.

[marky]

Yes and the explanation compared to the image is very poor. Of course reverse inc would create a full, you cannot have inc with full because it doesn't know what has changed. Whoever wrote that has no idea how to explain something in a logical manner. Basically as I understand it, reversed is first a full backup > then recordings of changed data (not the actual saved data), then full again?

I've recommended reversed because we are backing up to disk.

So we can eliminate normal incremental because we are baking up to disk, right?

[foggy]

Yes and the explanation compared to the image is very poor. Of course reverse inc would create a full, you cannot have inc with full because it doesn't know what has changed. Whoever wrote that has no idea how to explain something in a logical manner. Basically as I understand it, reversed is first a full backup > then recordings of changed data (not the actual saved data), then full again?

Reversed incremental mode maintains full backup as the latest restore point, offloading changes into rollback incremental files during each job run.

So we can eliminate normal incremental because we are baking up to disk, right?

You can chose the backup mode based on your requirements, please see the table I've referred to in my post above.

[marky]

Reversed incremental mode maintains full backup as the latest restore point, offloading changes into rollback incremental files during each job run.
You can chose the backup mode based on your requirements, please see the table I've referred to in my post above.

So what's the point of having the option set 'active full backup' and setting it to a day if reversed inc is going to created the last backup as a full recovery point?

I've just checked my test back of a VM and all the file for this week are small files 'vrb', then one from last night is vrb and vbk, Thursday. Where's the full backup from Wednesday?!

Please try to explain this clearly and logically otherwise not at all!

[foggy]

So what's the point of having the option set 'active full backup' and setting it to a day if reversed inc is going to created the last backup as a full recovery point?

Right, the latest restore point is always full. However it is still recommended to perform active full periodically to avoid extremely long incremental backup chains and fragmented full backup file.

I've just checked my test back of a VM and all the file for this week are small files 'vrb', then one from last night is vrb and vbk, Thursday. Where's the full backup from Wednesday?!

Changes from the last night's backup job run were injected into Wednesday's full, which became new Thursday's full restore point (remember, with reverse incremental mode, full backup is moving forward with every job run). All substituted blocks were saved into rollback (VRB) file.

Hope this is quite clear.

[marky]

Ok, I get that now thankfully. So basically it's merging the last full backup and inc files to create an upto full backup

I still don't get why the active full backup for Wednesday is not there (only a reversed inc file). We're on Friday, it was Thursday yesterday, not Wednesday (my active full backup day). I recall changing it to Wednesday from Saturday earlier in the week, regardless the change should surely have applied.

If I manually run active full now on the job I suspect it will create a full backup, a reversed inc later and a full (schedule), would it not?

[veremin]

I still don't get why the active full backup for Wednesday is not there (only a reversed inc file). We're on Friday, it was Thursday yesterday, not Wednesday (my active full backup day). I recall changing it to Wednesday from Saturday earlier in the week, regardless the change should surely have applied.

Are saying that the latest restore point isn't a .vbk file, but a .vib one?

If I manually run active full now on the job I suspect it will create a full backup, a reversed inc later and a full (schedule), would it not?

If you run active full now, it will indeed create a new active full backup that will be used, then, as the point to insert changes to. The manual active full run doesn't affect general active full schedule.

Thanks.

[marky]

I'm saying that I have a vbk from Saturday, but I changed on Tuesday the active full day to Wednesday, but there is no active full vbk file for Wednesday, only a small vrb file.

The latest vbk file is from last night (as per reversed workings)

I would have expected to see a vbk file from Wednesday.

[veremin]

I'm saying that I have a vbk from Saturday, but I changed on Tuesday the active full day to Wednesday, but there is no active full vbk file for Wednesday, only a small vrb file.

What about Tuesday? Is there a .vbk file for that day? Thanks.

[Fiskepudding]

Let me try to explain the Incremental.
Like the "green's" have tried to explain, the last incremental (in veeam terminoligy) is ALWAYS considered a full.
Veeam does NOT do a FULL backup, but the nature of always "injecting" incrementals, will logically make the last backup a full backup. It’s probably closer to what veeam call a synthetic full, then a full backup.
But never the less, you can restore anything from that restore point, all files are available there.
So a full backup have not been created, but the last incremental will be presented as full, and in Veeam.
And it makes total sense..

Why active fulls?:...
Well. Active full can be good to have if you want to offload physical files somewhere.
The full backup won’t be touched again, so you have plenty of time to move/copy it.
And if you are a bit paranoid about long incremental chains (over months).
I do active full about every two weeks. “Just in case”.. it should not be needed, but i have time in my backup windows, and space to spare.

Hope this helps

I hope I have understood this right myself, if not please corrent me Veeam guys .

[marky]

Thanks, I know people are only trying to help but I need to be clear because this will be on me if it goes belly up, let alone trying to explain to everyone else.

I take it you're referring to reversed inc being the latest/last full, normal incremental are as we all refer to aren't they? Also, surely every job starts as a full otherwise you cannot have an incremental.

Also, aren't active and full reversed inc the same type of file, vbk so as long as we have the latest we will be ok to restore?

[Fiskepudding]

Yes. Reversed incrementals.
Yes. They are the same file TYPE (VBK).

However the main difference is:
VBK in a full backup - is created once
VBK in a reversed incremental chain - is created once, then updated for each incremtal..



So, i guess you will runn into trouble if you try to copy the latest VBK, if the incremental backup have startet.
Because the next incremental will need to edit/add/inject data into the VBK in the incremental chain.
That will not happen if you have a full backup.

The other reason is the loong chain for the reversed incremental. Some find that a bit distirbing. At least if they are not used to "forever incremetals".
That VBK could have been modifed hundreds of times in just a month. (depending on how often you do your backups). Some are a bit affraid that "Things can happen" in that process.
So having a full backup that have been created fresh, might give somone some extra comfort...

[foggy]

Regarding your "missing" Wednesday's VBK. So you say you've changed active full schedule to run on Wednesdays. Prior to that the latest restore point was Tuesday's full, right? Then on Wednesday, a new active full was created and you came up with two VBK files: the latest file in the previous reverse incremental backup chain and the newly created active full. Then, on Thursday, this active full was merged with the new changes and moved forward becoming Thursday's full, while the substituted blocks were offloaded into the new Wednesday's rollback (VRB) file. This is how reverse incremental works. Hope this makes sense.

[marky]

Regarding your "missing" Wednesday's VBK. So you say you've changed active full schedule to run on Wednesdays. Prior to that the latest restore point was Tuesday's full, right? Then on Wednesday, a new active full was created and you came up with two VBK files: the latest file in the previous reverse incremental backup chain and the newly created active full. Then, on Thursday, this active full was merged with the new changes and moved forward becoming Thursday's full, while the substituted blocks were offloaded into the new Wednesday's rollback (VRB) file. This is how reverse incremental works. Hope this makes sense.

So in my scenario, once Thursdays backup starts, Wednesday's full active backup file is gone (offloaded into an inc) because of how the reversed incremental system works?

[foggy]

Correct.