Incremental backups - Feature Request?

[fredbloggs]

Hi,

We utilise a tape backup routine as well as a disk based backup routine, I do not wish to discuss the benefits of each method in this post (see http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1441 where this was previously bought up as a discussion).

Our tape backup routine runs a Full backup on Fridays and a Differential backup for the remainder of the week, as mentioned in the previous post, when Veeam makes it's backup on each night it updates the master backup file and therefore the backup of all my machines needs to be included in the nightly tape backup window and means I'm unable to complete the backup in time.

I'd request a feature enhancement that allows me to use Veeam in a slightly modified way, for example

Every night it runs an incremental backup but this file is stored in a seperate file so that my nightly backups only need to backup this file and not the large full backup, e.g. a new file called 'backup.vbk.differential'
On Fridays (or when desired) it again runs this incremental backup, but also runs an additional job to consolidate this backup into the master backup file. Therefore resulting in my one large vbk file and no more '.vbk.differential' files

Is this feature possible today?
Is this something developers have thought abuot adding and on roadmap?
If it's not on a roadmap, is it possible to start a poll on what features people would like to see added in future versions so that Veeam can direct their focus on certain components?


Thanks

Mark

[Gostev]

Hi Mark, yes adding additional backup types is on our roadmap - but not for Backup 4.0 release.

[fredbloggs]

So I guess we're talking a while away yet. When is the current 4.0 finger in the sky release date?

Any ideas on what we can do in the interim as this will be a real PITA and may lead to me viewing competitive products that include this feature, especially since they now include File Level restores.

[Gostev]

We are currently aiming to release version 4.0 in the end of Q3.

As far as I know, most of the other customers archive to tape only on weekends only (where there is large window available to do this) instead of doing it everyday.

We did not have that many requests for supporting incremental backups before (in fact, first time when it was brought up by someone is just couple of months ago), which explains why this feature is not in the product now and is not coming in version 4.0. But last few months we have received quite a few requests, so this feature has high priority for us right now. We only did not add it in 4.0 because this release is feature-complete already, and it is too late to add major changes, so we decided to deliver this feature in the following release instead.

[fredbloggs]

ok, that's fair enough understand it's not worth spending the effort unless it's a required feature, glad it's on the roadmap as a reasonably high priority

as a guestimate, how often do you release major upgrades?

[Gostev]

So far, we've been releasing major upgrade every 6-7 months.

[Gostev]

Just wanted to update that we have done some further discussions and planning around this feature (regular incremental backup) with the team, and we are now planning to make this feature generally available as a minor release by the end of this year.

[fre1621]

I would be very interested in this type of backup. I have customers that require this type of a backup as well.

How about more scheduling options too?
I would like to run a backup once a month (or quarter) or say I want to exclude a date?

--
Thanks,
Fred

[Gostev]

Fred, for complex schedules like that you can already use Windows scheduler to start Veeam Backup job from command line, Windows scheduler has all the scheduling options you can possibly imagine.

[fredbloggs]

Just wanted to update that we have done some further discussions and planning around this feature (regular incremental backup) with the team, and we are now planning to make this feature generally available as a minor release by the end of this year.

That would be great, thanks for listening, that's why like this system so much.

[fre1621]

Fred, for complex schedules like that you can already use Windows scheduler to start Veeam Backup job from command line, Windows scheduler has all the scheduling options you can possibly imagine.

Good idea, hadn't thought of that. Where can I find the command line syntax?

--
Thanks, Fred

[Gostev]

Fred, the job-specific command line can be found on the last page of backup/replication job wizard, in the Summary pane where all job settings are dumped in the text form.