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ict
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Job review and advice request!

Post by ict »

Veeam Community,

I'm a new Veeam user and I'd appreciate peoples thoughts/comments on my current job configuration as I've found the setup a bit confusing, especially regarding retention policies. I need to be certain that our existing retention policy is retained before we disable jobs on our current backup solution (Avamar). Currently we keep a months worth of daily backups and monthly backups for 24 months which is all stored using disk-to-disk storage.

I have recommissioned our tape library in an effort to place backups on another media type that will support long term archiving.

The majority of the backups are going to a DataDomain dedupe appliance, including both daily and monthly jobs. The devices RAW capacity certainly wouldn’t hold all VM backups, so I’m hoping the compression and dedupe functional will make it a suitable primary repository.

Site Overview
We have a single production site (2 hosts) which has a private 1Gb/E link to our DR site.
All of our production VMs are stored on a SAN. We have a NAS and a DataDomain160 at the production site which are to be used as backup repositories. The NAS has 1.8TB of SAS storage available, and the DD160 has 3.6TB (RAW) of NL-SAS.
Our DR site is made up of 2x hosts, a NAS with 1.8TB of SAS (used to store replicas only) and another DD160 with 3.6TB (used to store backup data replicated from production DD160). The 2x DataDomain appliances are configured in a one-to-one replication pair, so if the primary one dies or the production site goes up in smoke - the secondary device will have a near point in time copy of all the historical backup data.

Replication Jobs
Currently I have three replication jobs:
1. Hourly Exchange replication job to NAS @ DR - single restore point kept.
2. Nightly Servers job (excluding file server) to NAS @ DR - single restore point kept. Not enough space on SAS storage to include ~1.5TB replica of file server.
3. Weekly Virtual PCs job to local SAS storage on one of the hosts - single restore point kept. No user data kept on these "utility" machines so weekly is ok.
I am happy with the replication jobs, they have been completing successfully since setting them up

Backup Jobs
1. 8PM Nightly DC Backup to DataDomain: 14 restore points kept, Active Full taken each Sunday. Inline dedupe and compression disabled, optimized for local target.
As the 2x DCs don’t contain user data, I think 2 weeks of restore points should be suitable.

2. 9PM Nightly Exchange Backup to DataDomain: 31 restore points kept, Active Full taken each Sunday. Inline dedupe and compression disabled, optimized for local target

3. Monthly Exchange Backup to DataDomain: 24 restore points are kept, Active Full taken at 10PM on the last Friday of each month. Inline dedupe and compression disabled, optimized for local target.

4. 9PM Nightly App Server Backup to NAS: 7 restore points kept, Synthetic Full taken each Sunday. Inline dedupe enabled, optimal compression, optimized for local target. * Backups stored on SAS storage, intended for faster recovery times.

5. Monthly App Backup to DataDomain: 24 restore points are kept, Active Full taken at 11PM on the last Friday of each month. Inline dedupe and compression disabled, optimized for local target.

6. 10PM Nightly File Server Backup to DataDomain: 31 restore points kept, Active Full taken each Saturday. Inline dedupe and compression disabled, optimized for local target.
* I believe this should cover a month’s worth of “daily” backups. Also opt to take active full backup on Saturday to allow for larger backup window.

7. Monthly File Server Backup to DataDomain: 24 restore points are kept, Active Full taken on the first Sunday of each month. Inline dedupe and compression disabled, optimized for local target. This job is scheduled to run at 12:01AM on the first Sunday of the month.

Tape Jobs
1. Monthly Exchange Backup to Tape: This job processes the Monthly Exchange Backup job, applies it to the "Full Backups (created monthly)" pool and is set to run after the Monthly Exchange Backup job.
2. Monthly File Server Backup to Tape: This job processes the Monthly File Server Backup job, applies it to the "Full Backups (created monthly)" pool and is set to run after the Monthly File Server Backup job.
3. Monthly App Server Backup to Tape: this job processes the Monthly App Server Backup job, applies it to the “Full Backups (created monthly)” pool and is set to run after the Monthly App Server Backup job.
* The pool mentioned is set to “Create a new media set for every backup session” – I want to have a single VM/Job per tape which I can remove and take to another location once a month.
** The pool has the data retention policy set to “Protect data for 24 months”.


As the tape pool has the “Protect data for 24 months” option set, does this mean that the particular tape(s) can be reused for another job if it has space still available? As in, the existing data is preserved but the free space on that tape can still be utilised for another job?

I’d appreciate any feedback on the above jobs or ideally confirmation that I’m on the right track to keeping to the company’s existing retention policy by using a combination of daily and monthly backup jobs.

I did look into the "Backup Copy" jobs, however the fact that the backup data has to be rehydrated on the DD would make the job take forever?

Sorry for the long winded post, I figured it would be best to state as much detail as possible - thanks for reading.

- Veeam 7 running on a 2012 VM in a vSphere 5.1 environment
foggy
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Re: Job review and advice request!

Post by foggy »

Hello, if your only concern is keeping retention the same as you currently have with Avamar, then yes, described jobs setup definitely allows for the same retention. Am I understanding right that all your backup jobs are forward incremental? Anyway, you may want to review the following recommendations on the full backup frequency (note that your Nightly App Server Backup to NAS job does not seem to be set to perform active fulls at all): How often do I need a full backup?

Do you have any other concerns, btw? Probably performance, meeting backup window, etc.?..
ict
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Re: Job review and advice request!

Post by ict »

Hi foggy - thanks for your prompt reply.

I'm glad my job setup has covered the retention requirements, that was my primary concern.

Yes all jobs are forward incremental - this was chosen as the best practices document states this method is preferred when backups are stored on a dedupe appliance.

I might change the Nightly App Server to do an Active Full instead of Synthetic. The original reason for synthetic was to ensure there was no open snapshots of the machine that would be committed in business hours. I think I'll just have to monitor the jobs and see how it goes time wise and adjust as necessary.

As you can tell I've staggered the start time of each job in an effort to reduce the load on both the source and destination storage. As long as the jobs complete before work hours start I'm happy. Now that I know the retention side of things is covered I will activate all jobs and monitor their progress. Fortunately we're coming up to the end of the month so I will be able to see how the monthly fulls go along with the tape jobs.
veremin
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Re: Job review and advice request!

Post by veremin »

As the tape pool has the “Protect data for 24 months” option set, does this mean that the particular tape(s) can be reused for another job if it has space still available? As in, the existing data is preserved but the free space on that tape can still be utilised for another job?
No, it can't be reused by another job, since you're creating media set for every backup session, and two media set can't reside on one tape.
I might change the Nightly App Server to do an Active Full instead of Synthetic.
You can leave your synthetic schedule as is, and just add monthly active full, as suggested by best practices mentioned by Alexander.

Thanks.
foggy
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Re: Job review and advice request!

Post by foggy »

ict wrote:As you can tell I've staggered the start time of each job in an effort to reduce the load on both the source and destination storage.
Actually, you can schedule jobs to start at the same time (or with short intervals), configure the maximum number of allowed concurrent tasks for proxies and repositories, and let Veeam handle the load automatically for you.
ict
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Re: Job review and advice request!

Post by ict »

Thanks for the info on the tape situation Vladimir. So would I be correct in saying a tape that had say December's "Monthly Exchange to Tape" backup would automatically be re-used for that same job (future months) if it was returned to the tape library?

I have changed the nightly jobs to all run at 8PM after tweaking the max concurrent job setting down on the DD repo to 2. Is there a way to tell Veeam the order in which jobs should be executed?
foggy
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Re: Job review and advice request!

Post by foggy »

ict wrote:I have changed the nightly jobs to all run at 8PM after tweaking the max concurrent job setting down on the DD repo to 2. Is there a way to tell Veeam the order in which jobs should be executed?
Yes, just schedule them with short intervals I was mentioning above, in the required order (i.e. 8:00, 8:01, 8:02, etc.).
veremin
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Re: Job review and advice request!

Post by veremin »

Thanks for the info on the tape situation Vladimir. So would I be correct in saying a tape that had say December's "Monthly Exchange to Tape" backup would automatically be re-used for that same job (future months) if it was returned to the tape library?
Quick remark.

One media pool can be used by several tape jobs. So, when you return the cassette back into the library, it will be assigned to the media pool it used to belong. If the retention of the given cassette is over, and there are several tape jobs using this media pool, the cassette will be taken by the job that starts first.

Thanks.
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