Migrate from Veritas Backup Policies

[great_vc]

Hi,

I have started migrating my NetBackup policies to the Backup & Replication. I have started with the easy ones, windows machines that need to backup folders (e:\myapplication) of the (no need for VM backup) but i have trouble understanding the whole full backup/differential backup and how this is represented in VEEAM. It would be good to have a document with examples on most common cases. I have found the folders option, no application aware backup needed.

I'm still confused with the difference of retention policies and restore points, the synthetic backups, keep weekly backups etc.
I think if someone points me on how to accomplish the following policy it will solve most of the questions.





So how do i setup my backup exactly like the one above. With the same Frequency and retention period.
How the Retention policy on the first screen is applied on this scenario ? do i need to check on days or restore points ? Or it is handled by advanced settings ?

Many thanks
-Vassilis

[great_vc]

For some reason i cannot edit my first post so apologies for this.

Also i fine second example that it is brain confusing for me in VEEAM is to accomplish the below as well



(The calendar frequency is at the last day of the month)

[HannesK]

Hello,
Veeam supports full and incremental backup. We never introduced differential backups as their advantage is mainly for tape.

I'm not a Veritas expert, but I think the following would be near what you had
- 14 days retention (you can switch between restore points and days)
- weekly synthetic full with GFS enabled for 4 weeks



Best regards,
Hannes

[great_vc]

ok Hannes, lets forget about Differential, and call them from now on Incremental.
The schedule has nothing to do with Veritas knowledge or how to do that in NetBackup.

My main question is how the above schedules can be accomplished in veeam. My second post which has daily, monthly and yearly.
I'm still very confused with how the schedules work. I read the documents and i'm more confused that is why i gave specific examples with schedules on how these are transformed in a VEEAM Backup

[HannesK]

Hello,
I see... I forgot the daily schedule and the second post was created while I answered only on the first post (I did not see it).

- 14 days retention (you can switch between restore points and days)
- weekly synthetic full on Friday (as far as interpret the screenshots, you weekly backup is done on Friday) with GFS enabled for 4 weeks
- monthly: 12 (no calendar for that. Veeam takes the first / last weekly as monthly backup instead of creating an additional full backup)
- yearly: I cannot see that in the screenshots
- schedule: daily at 1am (as far as I interpret the screenshot you also like to limit the backup window to 6am to finish).

Best regards,
Hannes

[great_vc]

Thank you Hannes! that is more clear now.
I friendly suggest to create a sample documentation with common NETBACKUP policies and how to transform them to VEEAM. Maybe other people are confused as me

I will continue with this, and surely to be back when it is time for the SQL schedules

Regards,
-Vassilis

[great_vc]

Hello to all again!

I'm doing progress on the migration and the answers here are very helpful. Lets see if I got this right:

Incremental Backup every 1 hour at 09:00 daily





One full backup every day



At the end of every week keep one weekly backup for two weeks. And at the end of the year keep on yearly full backup



Is the above correct scheduled ?

1. In order to have incremental every day I have to select the synthetic backup for every day (mon, tue etc) ? Or only one single day
2. “keep weekly full backup” does it make a difference on which day I select below ?
3. Also will the yearly work that way or I have to keep monthly backups also ? And again does it make any difference on which Month/Yearly I select ?

Many thanks in advance,
- Vassilis

[HannesK]

Hello,
uhm, that looks different than my answer and I think different to what you had at NetBackup.

Note: every backup is a logical full. It doesn't matter, whether it's a real full or an incremental backup. When you open a backup, you will always see the full snapshot of the machine of the time of backup.

1. if you select "synthetic full" every day, then you get a real full backup every day (with XFS / REFS it's "spaceless", but still a full backup every day). And in between you get 23 incremental restore points. one backup every hour. I cannot see frequency "1h" in the screenshots above.
2. With the current configuration it makes a difference. Because you create a full every day (that's what "multiple full backups" in the text means).
3. Selecting a different month makes a difference, yes. If you want to keep your September backup for multiple years, then September is okay. I don't see yearly backups in the original screenshots.

Best regards,
Hannes

[great_vc]

On the first screenshot it says "periodically every 1 hours"
The retention Policy 1 day means that every 1 hour i have incremental and at the end of the day i have one daily full backup ?

Confused about the synthetic again ? i thought that was the incremental. So what is the correct ? on my disk i can see the full and the incrementals every day. Should i select the clean option as well after 2 days so it deletes the old incrementals and keep the full backups.

The yearly without a montly backup will it work ? You can see yearly on the last screenshot "Keep yearly full backups for 1 years". I mean if i do not have a monthly backup how the yearly is kept, from the weekly ?

If all of the above is wrong, once more please how the following scenario should be matched:

Incremental Backup every 1 hour at 09:00 daily
One full backup every day (so the incrementals of the day should be merged and not visible as files on the disk? correct?)
At the end of every week keep one weekly backup for two weeks.
And at the end of the year keep one yearly full backup

edit:Keep in mind that this is NOT a VM Backup. It is a file level backup, like e:\application1, c:\inetpub

[HannesK]

Note: you can see all files directly in the file system. that should also explain it after a few hours / day with the schedule you have.

On the first screenshot it says "periodically every 1 hours"
The retention Policy 1 day means that every 1 hour i have incremental and at the end of the day i have one daily full backup ?

yes, correct

Confused about the synthetic again ? i thought that was the incremental. So what is the correct ? on my disk i can see the full and the incrementals every day. Should i select the clean option as well after 2 days so it deletes the old incrementals and keep the full backups.

Maybe this animation helps. Synthetic Full Backup section. You configured it for every day. Also I recommend the backup methods section in helpcenter

The yearly without a montly backup will it work ? You can see yearly on the last screenshot "Keep yearly full backups for 1 years". I mean if i do not have a monthly backup how the yearly is kept, from the weekly ?

With the current configuration, the 1st September will be kept for one year. From the user guide

IMPORTANT: he described mechanism does not apply to a situation where you select only two types of GFS flags, yearly and weekly. If you select these two types and do not select the monthly type, Veeam Backup & Replication treats the case as if you select only one flag type. This means that flags of each type are assigned according to the algorithm for one flag type.

Incremental Backup every 1 hour at 09:00 daily

how can every 1 hour be only at 09:00? every 1h our means 1am, 2am, 3am etc. for me. I think you ask for every day at 09:00

One full backup every day (so the incrementals of the day should be merged and not visible as files on the disk? correct?)

incrementals will be kept for the amount of time configured. they are not merged anywhere. only the additional full is created every day at the first backup run of that day

At the end of every week keep one weekly backup for two weeks.

if Sunday is the end of your week, then Sunday is good, yes.

And at the end of the year keep one yearly full backup

that would be December then. Not September.

[great_vc]

Hello again,

Can someone verify that this is the correct approach on these two policies for VM (vmware):

One Backup in specific months and keep the full backup for retention of 87 days.

.

And one full backup on a specific month which will keep it for one year

.

I'm using reverse incremental in order to have one file with full backup and not many incrementals files in the directory since i need the full only. I think that is correct.



Also, i'm trying to have a backup run every two weeks, i can find only weekly and select a specific day on that week. How i can have it every two weeks at 14:00 lets say ?

Many thanks.

[HannesK]

Hello,
it sounds like a strange schedule to run a backup only once per month (or year in second question), but yes, that looks close. The full will be changed every month / year (so there is no "keep"), but you will be able to restore for 87 / 365 days (which is probably the main goal)

Reverse incremental is creating the same amount of incremental backups like forever forward incremental. The chain is just working the other way around https://www.veeam.com/kb1933

I assume that you are wasting a lot of disk space as it looks like you try to create multiple jobs as you hat multiple policies in the past. In Veeam, there is one job that has "everything" for one VM: daily, weekly, monthly and yearly retention.

Bi-weekly schedule does not exist in the UI. It could be done (command is at the summary page of the job wizard) with an external scheduler (e.g. Windows scheduler). But I suggest to get everything in one job and if necessary just have a backup more instead of trying to somehow manage a 1:1 copy.

Best regards,
Hannes

[great_vc]

Hannes, i know the look strange but that is the business need. They want a VM backup that can be restored before the tombstone ends and it looses its trust with the domain.
The one year it is also requested by our vendor for that project.

I didn't have multiple polices, the VM ones are mainly like that. So by waste of space what do you mean ? how else can i accomplice the backup every month and keep it for a year without using too much space. Is there any difference if i use something with GFS or synthetic backups, or the 365 restore days is enough (in a weird way and environment)

I've change it back to incremental backups.

[HannesK]

ah okay, then it makes sense (I have seen customers creating multiple jobs for one machine to "copy" policies).

Just in case (for the 1 year schedule): If you have a situation where you need to keep a machine for 1 year (for example after a project ends), then there is also VeeamZIP.

[great_vc]

VeeamZIP is good!
But it is for archive, i need something that will be repeated every year. So the 365 retention days is the best option.
see ?
i'm learning

Thanks Hannes!

[great_vc]

Ok, i think i'm done with the policies. I think i have properly migrate it. Just want to make sure about this. If i got this right then my logic behind the others are correct.

SQL Server, Backup runs every Friday so we have the first full, then backup logs every 8 hours and truncate them from SQL Server and keep them for one week. So we have the full every week and i can then restore at each day with the transaction logs up to a week. Finally the weekly full backup want to be kept for one month. Are these settings correct ?



.






Many Thanks.

[HannesK]

Hello,
yes, that's correct.

Note: Most customers incremental backup every day (meaning keeping the "days" on default and run every day). Every incremental backup is a logical full with Veeam. That allows faster restore, as log replay only needs to be done for maximum one day.

Best regards,
Hannes

[great_vc]

Excellent, thanks Hannes!