Question regarding FastClone and BackUp-Copy

[Tom_LeFx]

Hi,

I have a question regarding the use of FastClone on a BackUp-Copy-Repository. So far - from my own tests and documentation, I deducted, that FastCopy enables Synthetic Full Backups without having to pull all the data from the Source once again (in contrast to active Full Backups) - this is nice and it saves greatly on the transfered data and time needed to create those synthetic fulls.

My question now is, how does this affect offsite-repositories, that would have to take in a backup-copy. Our planned offsite-repo for BackUp-Copies is also a CentOS machine with XFS behind WAN/VPN with limited bandwidth. Am I correct to assume from the documentation, that FastClone would also work for this one? So it gets "informed" by the job to create a Synthetic full and does so on itself without having to transfer/copy the results of the created synthetic full on the primary backup-repo? Or does it not work that way?

Thanks for helping out.

[Mildur]

Hi

FastCopy enables Synthetic Full Backups without having to pull all the data from the Source once again (in contrast to active Full Backups)

It doesn't matter if FastClone is used or not. Synthentic Full Backups always only transfer incremental blocks to the target repository and then build a new Full Backup from previously stored blocks and the incremental blocks. Active Full Backup will transfer all blocks to the target repository.

The difference with FastClone is that existing blocks on the repository are not copied, but only referenced for the new full backup file. This saves a lot of space and time.

My question now is, how does this affect offsite-repositories, that would have to take in a backup-copy. Our planned offsite-repo for BackUp-Copies is also a CentOS machine with XFS behind WAN/VPN with limited bandwidth. Am I correct to assume from the documentation, that FastClone would also work for this one? So it gets "informed" by the job to create a Synthetic full and does so on itself without having to transfer/copy the results of the created synthetic full on the primary backup-repo? Or does it not work that way?

Yes. Backup Jobs and Backup Copy Jobs works the same regarding FastClone. Only incremental blocks will be copied to the remote location. The repository server will then use references to existing blocks together with the incremental blocks to build the new synthetic full backup.

You may check out our WAN Accelerator if the bandwidth is too low for the copy process.

Best,
Fabian