question about copying backup files

[namiko78]

Hello

I need to keep certain vm's for 7 years. I'd like to have 2 monthly backup jobs, in case there are issues with corruption or storage where i lose one of the repository. If one goes away, can I copy the files from the other one, and use those to keep the 2'nd job going? Would I have to import them ? I guess i'd have to pause the good job to ensure it's a consistent copy of all files. Thoughts?

Thanks

[foggy]

Steven, you an use backup files from one job to seed another one. You would need to copy files to the corresponding repository, rescan it, and then map the job to existing files.

[namiko78]

Thanks, i figured it was possible just wanted to be sure.

[PTide]

Hi,

I'd like to have 2 monthly backup jobs,

What's the purpose of having two backup jobs for the same VM?

If one goes away, can I copy the files from the other one, and use those to keep the 2'nd job going?

I'd recommend you to use Backup Copy Job in order to create a copy of a backup chain in an effective and reliable manner, unless you have some serious reasons not to.

I guess i'd have to pause the good job to ensure it's a consistent copy of all files. Thoughts?

Well, the job has to be not running at the moment of making a copy. Nevertheless, please consider using a backup copy job - it's been designed specifically for such cases.

Thank you.

[namiko78]

The purpose is insurance. If something happens to my backup files on year 6, i'd like to have a way to recover that.
I guess the backup copy job would work too, although it's a little harder to have it run on the exact day of the month, as it is, i can't set a backup job to run on the first of the month, only the first day. I have less options with the copy job, as i'd have to manually run the snyc now option on the 1'st of the month the first time. I just worry it would get out of sync. It would be nice to have options in both jobs to run on an exact day.

Thanks

[PTide]

although it's a little harder to have it run on the exact day of the month, as it is, i can't set a backup job to run on the first of the month

That sounds reasonable, plenty of people have already requested that scheduling model. Anyway, if you ever decide to stick with backup copy job (which is a recommended approach) then you can easily sync it whenever you want - just combine Windows Task Scheduler and PowerShell one-liner - please check this thread for script.

Thank you.

[namiko78]

Are these changes planned for v9? I'd probably opt to have it just run every 30 days and not worry too much about the exact day, rather then complicate it by running powershell scripts, but thank you for linking the option.

[Shestakov]

Hello Steven,
Actually it can be accomplished in v8 without Powershell or any other tool.
As your purpose is to have a historical copy of backups, you can use GFS retention policy. And you can choose exact days which backups you need to be saved. And all your historical restore points will be full backups.
Does it work for you?

[namiko78]

No, because the GFS creates full copies of the backup, which would be massive over 7 years.

[Shestakov]

Could you explain your backup strategy?
How many restore points you want to keep by basic backup job and how many by historical?

You are right, it`s hard to keep a lot of points if you are short in space. So our clients usually vary number of restore points for weekly/monthly/yearly backups. For instance you may keep 12 monthly restore points(1-year retention for each) and 7 yearly backups.

[namiko78]

My proposed backup strategy is as follows: Define tags in vmware:

30-day
30-day-12-months
30-day-84-months

I'd make more tags for some of the larger servers just to keep the backup files size under control.

Make backup jobs for the 30 day stuff, a copy job for the 30 day to get it offsite, and then another backup copy job to allow me to make monthly checkpoints (maybe 2, so i can replicate this offsite also)

I was originally going to use copy jobs with the GFS, but this will consume much more space, as won't each point be a full backup? no matter if it's yearly, monthly, etc?

Have I over / under thought this?

Thanks

[Shestakov]

I was originally going to use copy jobs with the GFS, but this will consume much more space, as won't each point be a full backup? no matter if it's yearly, monthly, etc?

Correct. All GFS restore points are Full backups. However, you can run the backup copy job once in 7 days, so you will have a chain of weekly backups (Full+increments). And you can set monthly/quarterly/yearly backups as GFS ones.
There is not a lot of logic in keeping monthly/quarterly/yearly backups as chains, because VMs change significally over months and increments will not be that small. Plus if you want to keep 7-year long chain of monthly backups, the 84-points chain will be much less reliable than individual Full backups.

[namiko78]

I agree that having a 7 year monthly backup has potential for issues long term, that is why I was thinking of running 2 of them, each 7 years, so if one goes corrupt I can use the other.

I have about 17 TB of backups,(just VBK's) so to generate full's of these each month using GFS is quite costly from a disk space perspective. I was also thinking about using GFS, create monthly backups with compression off on the job, and using server 2012 dedup to shrink these down. That has risks too, and i'd ideally need two jobs here too in case something went wrong.

[Shestakov]

I was also thinking about using GFS, create monthly backups with compression off on the job, and using server 2012 dedup to shrink these down.

Sounds valid. Lots of our customers successfully implement it.

I believe you don`t really need to have 2 similar jobs, since they use same mechanism and it will not reduce a probability of a mistake(which is close to zero). I would recommend Surebackup tool instead, to be 100% your backups are recoverable.

[namiko78]

It's on my list to setup sure backup, just not quite sure how to do it, will have to read the docs. I do test backups from time to time but surebackup sounds like a better way. Do people typically test every single backup or does it choose a subset? (the surebackup method)

[Shestakov]

Correct, Surebackup helps you test it automatically, delivering you from the manual testing.

Do people typically test every single backup or does it choose a subset? (the surebackup method)

It depends on number of factors, Veeam backups are reliable and provides inner integrity checks, so some customers just do Active Full backups periodically without any other testing, but surebackup is indeed a recommended way to be 100% sure. Thanks!