GFS Deduplication Expectations for Backup Copy Jobs

[mscholl]

Hello,

Actively on our Fulls we're getting around 3.7x Deduplication and our incrementals are currently getting anywhere between 1.2-1.4x. We've been asked to find out what kind of dedup results we would get on a GFS point creation through Veeam and Backup Copy Jobs.

Could someone hopefully help clear up some questions I had about GFS points:

1. When Veeam creates a GFS point it effectively creates a "full" backup, however my understanding of the way a Backup Copy job works is that it only pull's incremental data in a forward incremental way (if the original job was created as such). Does Veeam take this incremental data and effectively create a Synthetic Full on the backup repository based on previous backups with the changed blocks, or does it actually do a full transfer of all data when creating the GFS point.

2. Would these GFS points, as they are considered fulls, receive the same if not similar deduplication ratios as an Active Full?

3. Is there a way to force a GFS point creation to test this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Shestakov]

Hello Michael and welcome to the community!
Your understanding is correct. Backup copy jobs work with Forever-Forward incremental method. Traditionally GFS restore point is created as Synthetic Full.
However, starting from v9 you have read the entire restore point from source instead of synthesizing it from increments option for backup copy job with GFS retention.

Both methods should show similar deduplication ratios.
Thanks!

[mscholl]

Thanks for the information Shestakov!

[Shestakov]

You are welcome Michael!
I guess the best way to test backup copy GFS is to create a job with Read the entire restore point from source instead of synthesizing it from increments option enabled and change the schedule of GFS fulls daily. This way in a week you can create 7 GFS points.
But I would rather use Restore Point Simulator to check how my backups will look like.
Thanks!