Best way to implement montly backups

[bitflip]

Hi,

We currently store our VM's at a central NFS share (SAN). We currently have a job that backups our VMs to another NFS share (48 restore points, each created at 1 hr. interval) What is the best way to implement monthly backups, to be able to return to a montlhly status? We would like to keep the backups on disk. Should we schedule a copy job that copies the contents of the Backup-NFS share to another location? If so, is it possible to specify just the .vbk file (we don't need the .vbr files in monthly backups)

Many thanks in advance!

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

You cannot choose to copy single files with the File Copy option, as it only chooses folders, but there are several workarounds that you could you use to achieve what you want:

1. You may configure a new job for your VMs with the retention policy set to 1, in this case the job will create only VBK file, this is the exact thing we need to fit your scenario. Then using Windows Scheduler you may configure to run the job-specific command line provided to you by Backup Job Wizard on the last step, in the Summary form that contains all job settings dumped as text. You can schedule to run it monthly. So by the job completion you may choose the folder with only VBK file to copy to another location.

Using this method you will get a monthly job, that runs using Windows Scheduler and contains only VBK file. This is more storage consuming way than others below, but it will work for sure.

2. Also If this is the case, you may copy the whole folder to some place where the tape software can see it (or any other software you going to use to move VBK file further), but then configure your tape archival process to pick up VBK file only.

3. Finally, you can use Windows Scheduler to run your own batch script to copy only VBK file to any specified location on monthly basis. Here is the script example if you need:

Code: Select all

copy *.vbk c:\monthly_backups

This command copies all files in the current directory on the current drive that have the extension .VBK to the monthly_backups folder.

P.S. Also just you to be aware the request about monthly backups is already implemented in v5.

Hope it helps! Thank you!

[bitflip]

I created a job in VEAAM B&R , which I called Montly Backup. I configured it to keep 12 recovery points. Next I automatically scheduled the job to run after every 730 hours (approx. 1 month). This way I only consume 1 extra full backup and have a backup status of each month. Is this a proper way, is it odd to do so, or am I looking over at something? Good to know that it will be solved in the next version (SureBackup). I heared it will only be announced at March 22nd and released in the 2nd quarter of 2010, is that right?

Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, this is also a possible way to schedule monthly backups. Actually SureBackup is not a next version, it is a set of unique features; and that's correct, public announcement will be on the 22nd of March and the release will be about early Q3 2010

[bitflip]

Thanks!