GFS Retention

[rogerdu]

I am attempting to setup 2 GFS retentions: one for Dev, one for Prod. The schemes are:

• Dev - 5 Weekly backups - Scheduled Saturday at 06:00
• Prod - 5 Weekly backups (every Sunday), 13 Monthly backups (Last Sunday of the month) - Scheduled Sunday 06:00

I finally got the timing to work last weekend however, I seem to have too many backup images:

Dev Full Backups

Code: Select all

02/16/2014  06:00 AM           586,143 Dev - Full.vbm
12/16/2013  08:49 AM        16,896,000 Dev - Full2013-12-16T060000.vbk
12/28/2013  09:05 PM   570,936,613,888 Dev - Full2013-12-22T190000.vbk
12/23/2013  06:00 AM        16,896,000 Dev - Full2013-12-23T060000.vib
02/02/2014  08:34 PM   571,111,777,280 Dev - Full2013-12-29T190000.vbk
02/02/2014  10:14 PM   572,413,652,992 Dev - Full2014-01-05T190000.vbk
02/03/2014  01:25 AM   575,920,868,352 Dev - Full2014-01-12T190000.vbk
02/08/2014  08:06 AM   575,101,197,312 Dev - Full2014-01-19T190000.vbk
02/15/2014  08:08 AM   568,451,146,752 Dev - Full2014-01-26T190000.vbk
02/01/2014  11:21 PM    60,530,695,168 Dev - Full2014-02-01T190122.vib
02/02/2014  11:51 PM    47,990,411,264 Dev - Full2014-02-02T190000.vib
02/08/2014  06:35 AM    76,891,296,256 Dev - Full2014-02-08T060032.vib
02/15/2014  06:32 AM    61,681,994,752 Dev - Full2014-02-09T060000.vib
02/16/2014  06:00 AM        16,896,000 Dev - Full2014-02-16T060000.vib

Prod Full Backups

Code: Select all

02/18/2014  06:00 AM           628,178 Prod - Full.vbm
12/16/2013  08:51 AM        16,896,000 Prod - Full2013-12-16T040000.vbk
12/29/2013  01:09 AM   448,162,105,344 Prod - Full2013-12-22T230000.vbk
12/23/2013  04:00 AM        16,896,000 Prod - Full2013-12-23T040000.vib
02/16/2014  08:24 AM   448,932,006,912 Prod - Full2013-12-29T230000.vbk
01/11/2014  11:29 PM    21,978,908,160 Prod - Full2014-01-05T230000.vib
01/18/2014  11:29 PM    20,344,760,320 Prod - Full2014-01-12T230000.vib
01/25/2014  11:33 PM    39,141,290,496 Prod - Full2014-01-19T230000.vib
02/01/2014  08:06 PM    25,655,389,184 Prod - Full2014-01-26T230000.vib
02/09/2014  06:35 AM    50,179,143,680 Prod - Full2014-02-02T230000.vib
02/16/2014  06:53 AM   105,632,746,496 Prod - Full2014-02-10T200000.vib
02/18/2014  06:00 AM        16,896,000 Prod - Full2014-02-18T060000.vib

In both cases, the Restore Points to keep = 5, but in this case I see that I have more than 5 weekly backups (or so I surmise) and not sure on the Monthlies...

I did not find the manual, FAQ or other posts in this forum to be a great help explaining what I am seeing here. Am I simply confused, or do I not have the definitions setup correctly?

[Gostev]

Recent restore points are not GFS restore points, these are the points created with every Backup Copy job run. For example, with copy interval of 1 day (which is what vast majority of customer do), the recent restore points are daily restore points.

Looking at your outputs above, Dev looks almost 100% correct - except December backups which should not be there, but perhaps those are just artifacts of changing retention settings multiple times, or just playing around with the job too much (for example, that extremely small oldest VBK is suspicious) and eventually running into some retention bug. I would just delete those manually at this point.

As far as Prod, I cannot make any sense of this one whatsoever, so it would be better to open a support case for debug logs investigation.

Thanks!