Health check best practice for our case

[FXE]

Hi all,

I want to optimize our backup policy following the upgrade to Veeam B&R 9.5 Update 1 and the installation of a new backup repository.

First question : space usage
Today we have a backup job that creates a full backup a week with 5 incremental backups.
The chain is like [FULL on sundays (~3TB) ; INC on mondays/tuesdays/wednesdays/thursdays/fridays (~350GB)]. The retention period is set to 14 points.
Currently, I have 3 complete chains and a new full created yesterday. So I have 4 full backups and 14 incremental backups (the first chain contains only 4 incremental backups) that take 15TB.
My new repository is near out of space and I think about reduce full backups ocurences like [FULL the first end third sundays (~3TB) ; INC on mondays/tuesdays/wednesdays/thursdays/fridays (~350GB)].
This new schema will allow us to have 2 complete chains that will use ~12TB (2 full backups and 20 incremental backups.
--> Will that a good way ?

Second question : Health check
Since our Veeam has been upgraded to 9.5 Update 1, we have set Health check.
Currently, It is launched after the first incremental backup following a full backup.
--> Should it be launched after each incremental backup ?

Thank you for your help.
Have a good week.

[Shestakov]

Hi,
The best practice is to use forever forward incremental job with periodic Surebackup verification.
This way you will have just one full backup and your backup will have a proven recoverability.
Thanks!

[FXE]

Hi and thank you for your answer.

OK, but how and where could I set this . In backup Advanced settings, I only have "Reverse incremental" and "Incremental (recommended)" options. Nothing about "forever forward incremental" or "SureBackup".

Regards,

[Shestakov]

Backup job works as Forever Forward Incremental when you disable full backups.
Surebackup is a job for backups verification.
Please check hyperlinks for more info.

[FXE]

OK, but we don't want to implement SureBackup now.
So how should I deal with Health check ?

Thank you.

[Shestakov]

You may use Health Checks for Forever Forward Incremental as well. It`s up to you how frequently to start it. I would say you may not need it work more often than weekly.

[FXE]

Thank you Shestakov.
I'll try this way from this day.
I'll give you a feedback soon.

Have a good day.

[Shestakov]

You are welcome.
Once you have a question, don`t hesitate asking.

[lando_uk]

If a health check takes more than 24hrs to complete, are incremental backups still run whilst its checking?

[Shestakov]

Usually it takes less than a day, but if you healthcheck is not finished it should be interrupted by backup job. Let me check it.

[Shestakov]

Actually the new job run will not happen if healthcheck is not finished. That`s because healthcheck is a part backup job, i.e. during healthcheck process the job is indicated as "running".

[lando_uk]

Would a health check take the same time as a job validator task? As when I run validator, some jobs take over 24hrs to complete, but the next backup runs, unless its a weekend where a transform happens.

[veremin]

For more information regarding comparison between validator and health check see this thread.

[lando_uk]

That's all good to know, but do the 2 processes take a similar time to complete? I realise I can just test myself, but Im lazy and just want you to tell me

[foggy]

Backup Validator should take longer, since it recalculates checksums for the entire backup chain, while health check verifies the latest restore point only.

[Shestakov]

But as was said, Surebackup is still a recommended solution. Thanks!

[lando_uk]

Hi
Did a health check test today on an average size job (3.5TB VBK) , its 75% done and been running for 8hrs. During that time the offsite copy job hasn't started, so I guess this isn't really a valid option for us for all jobs.

Thanks

[Shestakov]

You may perform it weekly during weekend of you have a day with no backup copy job runs.
Thanks!

[FXE]

Hi all,

All is good for me, thank you Shestakov.
Have a good WE !

[Shestakov]

Good to know. Thanks!

[marieelieg]

Hello everyone,

If I want to do a health check on a veeam environment, how exactly can I achieve this?
What do I need to check exactly? you know other than jobs' status, jobs' configuration, storage space (repository)...

And if Veeam ONE is present, what types of reports are recommended for a health check?

Thank you all in advance

[Shestakov]

Hello,
you just need to enable a corresponding checkbox. Best practices are explained in the topic.
Thanks!

[marius roma]

I have several backup jobs that run daily in the late evening.
Each job is scheduled to perform health check on a given day of the week.
A job was scheduled to run daily at 23:00 and to perform health check on Friday (I mean, at 23:00 on Friday night).
The job started on Thursday at 23:00 but failed because it was unable to backup a specific VM.
The retry occurred 2 hours later on Friday at 1:00 AM and was successfull.
After the retry the health check was performed.
On Friday morning I found a lot of jobs still performing health check.
Is it the right behavior?
How can I configure a job to performa Health Check only "after the session started on Friday night" and not after the session started on Thursday even in fhe retry happens on Friday?
Regards
marius

[DGrinev]

Hi Mario,

Yes, this is expected behavior of the health-check.
However, I'd highly recommend you to use Surebackup for recovery verification, it will provide you with extended options for scheduling.
Please review this thread for additional information. Thanks!