Switching from Incremental to Reverse Incremental

[Khue]

Because of a storage situation I have, I need to switch from incremental to reverse incremental. I need to still maintain my backups according to my SLA so my game plan was to offload all incrementals and fulls currently housed on my data stores to tape temporarily. Once the tape process had been done, I was then going to delete all existing .vbms, vbks, and .vibs from the current backup locations, switch all backup jobs to reverse incremental, then execute a full backup. Would this be the correct process to follow?

[Shestakov]

Hello Khue,

...so my game plan was to offload all incrementals and fulls currently housed on my data stores to tape temporarily.

You`ve said you are going to store backups on a tape temporarily, what are you planning to do with them later?

Would this be the correct process to follow?

It pretty much depends on your capabilities. The best practice is to keep backup copies on 2 different medias, one copy of backups on repositories another on tapes in your case, if you are running out of free space you can try to reconfigure retention policy and make a switch.
If it doesn`t help a lot, you can execute your plan. It looks sane: forward incremental backups are most fitted to disk-to-tape, reversed ones to disk-based.

[Khue]

You've said you are going to store backups on a tape temporarily, what are you planning to do with them later?

We need to be able to restore 7 days in the past as our SLA states. The vibs and the vbks will be sent to tapes with a week retention policy. Once the retention has expired, the tapes will be marked as free to resume normal tape activities. I basically need about 6 TBs of storage SOMEWHERE to house the current vibs and vbks. Once they are safely somewhere, I will then delete the existing vibs and vbks and start a full with the reverse incremental. For the record our current policy requires us to only backup the fulls to tape.

The big question I wanted a sanity check on is that once the vibs and vbks are on tape, am I free to delete the vibs, vbks, and vbms? It is my understanding that once I switch backup types and start a full, the necessary repositories will be created.

Edit: I appreciate the assistance. Thank you very much.

[marky]

I'd be interested to know this too (also are Incremental Backup files smaller than Reversed)?

If you can copy off the various files like you can with a RI setup, then I would say that's the best solution because you can always restore them and import.

You probably know anyway, but make sure you get the files off before you reduce your retention settings.

[Khue]

You probably know anyway, but make sure you get the files off before you reduce your retention settings.

I alluded to it, but for others reading this who are in the same boat, this is pretty important to state.

[Shestakov]

The big question I wanted a sanity check on is that once the vibs and vbks are on tape, am I free to delete the vibs, vbks, and vbms?

Yes, feel free to do that. Vbm files (backup metadata, indeed) are not required for restore but significantly increase backup import performance (in case you need to import your backups to a brand new Veeam B&R server during DR).
Vbk and Vib files are your actual backups. Once you copy them to tape you are able to make a recovery from them in case of disaster. If you need space on your repository you can delete them from it.

It is my understanding that once I switch backup types and start a full, the necessary repositories will be created.

If you switch from the forward incremental method to the reversed incremental method, Veeam Backup & Replication will first create a full backup next to the incremental backup chain. At every new job cycle, Veeam Backup & Replication will transform this full backup and add reversed incremental backups to the chain.
What`s a size of your backups during a week?
What`s a capacity of your repository, tape storage?

[Shestakov]

Marky, in the forum was a post about .vib .vrb sizes, please take a look.

[Khue]

What`s a size of your backups during a week?
What`s a capacity of your repository, tape storage?

I have 6 backup jobs and 1 copy job from another repository outside of the Veeam backup server (offsite resource that needs to go to tape). The six backup jobs cover 54 virtual machines and the copy job covers 1 virtual machine.

• Backup Job 1 - 510 Gigs - Local storage 1.20 Tb
• Backup Job 2 -20 Gigs - iSCSI LUN 4.5 Tb
• Backup Job 3 - 1.5 Tbs - iSCSI LUN 4.5 Tb
• Backup Job 4 - 80 Gigs - iSCSI LUN 4.5 Tb
• Backup Job 5 - 220 Gigs - iSCSI LUN 4.5 Tb
• Backup Job 6 - 509 Gigs - iSCSI LUN 4.5 Tb
• Copy Job 1 - 800 Gigs - iSCSI LUN 4.5 Tb

My repositories are all direct attached to the backup server. The server is a physical machine with multiple uplinks (10GbE).

• Repository 1 - Local Disk RAID 5 array 1.2 TBs (houses Backup Job 1)
• Repository 2 - SAN delivered LUN 4.5 Tbs (houses Backup Job 2,3,4,5,6, and Copy Job 1

My tape loader is a 24 cartridge LTO5 device. I have more blank tapes than can fit into the loader. All tapes are LTO5.

[Shestakov]

Khue,

Looks like your plan fits your infrastructure, since you have around 3.1TB of full backups having 4.5TB repository taking into account .vrbs.

Thanks for the feedback. Glad to help you.

[Khue]

Appreciate your help on this. Thanks nshestakov.