Question about incremental backups

[tom11011]

We are considering a few vmware backup products.

I am confused as to whether the veaam product should be considered a dedupe type of product or not. Here are my questions.

1.) I guess my question is how many incrementals should I have? Is there a standard? Should I do a full backup on say Saturday and then only do incrementals Sunday through Friday? Or, should I just do 1 full backup of a virtual machine and than only do incrementals indefinitely?

2.) If I want to restore an individual file, will veeam find all the versions automatically and let me choose or will I have to go through each incremental to find the file I need?

3.) If I want to restore an entire virtual machine, do I have to restore the full and than each incremental one at a time?

4.) Additionally, we are considering copying our backups (after the backup has completed) to a remote site over the Internet to keep the backups offsite for DR purposes. This would make incrementals desirable. This would not be a hot site.

Thanks for your answers and insights.

[Gostev]

Re: dedupe, sure we are dedupe solution. Check out the corresponding FAQ section for details on how it works (sticky topic on top of this forum).

1. Incrementals are typically daily, with full (synthetic or active) performed over a weekend. Those who backup more often typically use reversed incremental.
2. Veeam will find and display all file versions for you.
3. No, you just select the restore point you need, and restore is synthetic (VM is created using correct blocks right away).
4. Yes, you can copy incrementals. You can also use reverse incremental backup, and sync the full backup file with RSYNC (changes only).

There is detailed comparison listing pros and cons of each backup mode available with Veeam in FAQ, if you are interested,

Thanks!