Backup strategy plan.

[ogodt]

Hi all,

i need some help with some ideas for a backup strategy, i'm pretty new in the vmware/veeam World - but are learning every day

Our setup is:

3 ESX host with 10 VM's
3 LUN with total 3,3 TB + 1 LUN with 280 GB for our Microsoft Dynamic NAV 2009 server. (all placed on HP P2000 G3 SAN )
1 VEEAM BR 6.5 server with 840 GB backup disks
1 QNAP TS-869 PRO NAS with 8,3 TB (at this time 7,2 TB free space)

We currently have 2 backup jobs were one is our production backup with all our VM's in it, we take backup every day and keep restore point 14 days back on our QNAP, The job runs reversed incremental,
the second job is a SureBackUp job who tests our Dynamic NAV, Exchange 2007, DC and file server (it runs perfect and Works.)

We currently also make tape backup with Symantec, our plan is to skip tape and also have a Cloud backup.

And now to our wishes, we think that our production job is most for the case of recovery of VM's, what we need is the ability to recover e-mails/files from the fileserver maybe month back,
is there a "best pratice" or anything for this, i am thinking something like make a new backup job with backup every day for 31 days and maybe 1 job for every sunday for 2-3 month and a monthly job for 12 month,
but what is the best setup of such a job or is there any other way to do it, the only servers i need in this job is our Exchange 2007 and our fileserver (Windows 2008).

I hope there is someone who have some knowledge that can help me further.

\Ole

[dellock6]

Hi Ole, since you have plenty of free space into the Qnap, the quikest and simpler solution is to extend the retention of the backup job to meet your needs, if 14 days of backup use only 1.1 Tb, you have free space for creating several months of retention points, without the need to create a secondary backup job.
If you need to keep historic backup, you can simply copy once every few months the vbk file in another folder of the Qnap itself.

Luca.

[ogodt]

Hi Luca,

okay, but i dont want to copy the vbk file manually (i just forget it) so wouldn't be better to create a monthly job ??

and what is the best way to back them up, i'm thinking about "reverse incremental", "incremental with synthetic fulls", "Apllication-aware", "Guest file indexing" and so on, i'm thinking the more i read about it the more confused i get

[foggy]

okay, but i dont want to copy the vbk file manually (i just forget it) so wouldn't be better to create a monthly job ??

You can either go with the second job or schedule a script to offload the VBK on the required days via Task Manager, for example.

and what is the best way to back them up, i'm thinking about "reverse incremental", "incremental with synthetic fulls", "Apllication-aware", "Guest file indexing" and so on, i'm thinking the more i read about it the more confused i get

You definitely need to enable application-aware image processing for Exchange server and guest OS file system indexing to enable file-level restores from the file server. Regarding the backup method, I suggest reviewing this comparison document for pros and cons of each them.

[ogodt]

i'm getting a bit wiser

1. I am thinking about making our production job run with 31 restore points (Reverse Incremental, Application-aware and Guest file checked) and a full backup every saturday ( so 4-5 full backup ), is that overkill ? the main purpose of this job is to restore VM's ??

2. Make a second job that backs up our fileserver, Exchange and Dynamic nav, this job is backed up to Veeam server and is a extra safety job, this job is running with 5 restore points and the plan is to copy the VBK file to our NAS every month or so, the main purpose of this job is to restore files, e-mails and so on.

Are there any thoughts about anything i can do better.

\Ole

[veremin]

Is that overkill?

A little bit.

You should be aware that with reversed incremental mode the need for performing active full backup isn’t that strong. According to the best practice mentioned here, it’s considered to be less important and should be performed not so frequently, once every 1-3 months.

The plan is to copy the VBK file to our NAS every month or so.

If it’s reversed incremental mode that is being used, you can utilize something like RSync, that is built for block-level file synchronization. Rsync will allow not transferring the whole .vbk-file, but instead just updating the .vbk file that resides on NAS appliance with the changes.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[ogodt]

And i thought i was getting wiser

Ok, so instead i could make the restore points longer and use a full backup once per month or so ?

but i dont want to update the VBK file, i need a full copy every month so that i have all the files and e-mail at that date, or am i misunderstanding you ?

Thanks for the help.
Ole

[veremin]

Ok, so instead i could make the restore points longer and use a full backup once per month or so?

Yep, that was my point.

But I dont want to update the file, I need a full copy every month so that I have all the files and e-mail at that date, or am I misunderstanding you?

If your goal is to copy month-worth .vbk-file to NAS appliance, and store it there among other month-worth .vbk-files, like those produced in the end of previous months, then you can put into use Robocopy or similar utility for copying files to another location.

Otherwise, if you’re willing to store on your NAS device only one .vbk-file and to update it with the changes that have happened since the last month, you should use RSync utility, that is created for block-level file synchronization.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.