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Shestakov
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Shestakov »

Hello Benjamin,
To make your backup job to use Forever Forward Incremental method, be sure that you have both Synthetic and Active Full backups disabled in the advanced backup job settings. Please review the provided link and the topic to get more understanding. Feel free to ask additional questions. Thanks!
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by cerede2000 »

Thanks, but I don't understand.

If the first run of job is Monday with retention 15 days :
- Monday : Full VBK
- Tuesday : increment VIB
- Wednesday : increment VIB
.....
- Saturday 13th day : increment VIB
- Sunday 14th day : increment VIB
- Monday 15th day : ????
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by foggy »

Here's another link for you that answers this question.
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by cerede2000 »

So :
- Monday : Full VBK
- Tuesday : increment VIB
- Wednesday : increment VIB
.....
- Saturday 13th day : increment VIB
- Sunday 14th day : increment VIB
- Monday 15th day : increment VIB and Full VBK is merged with 1th tuesday increment VIB

So the VBK shifts day by day but is always in the past 15 days

It's right ?
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by foggy »

That's right.
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by cerede2000 »

Ah :) Thanks !

So my consultant was wrong !
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by foggy »

If you need the latest restore point in the chain as full backup file (VBK), consider using reverse incremental mode.
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Tim783 »

Hi,
Just have a question about Forward Incremental-Forever Backup.

I recently migrated quite a few VMs from after this they got a new ID so Veeam basically did a full backup. I have 2 full copies of the VMs in the vbk file. To reduce the file size of the vbk file I ran a manual Active Full.

My question is will the previous Forward Incremental-Forever chain be deleted at some point? Or do I have to do this manually? If so how do I do this safely? The Job is configured for 35 restore points. I currently have 35 restore points for the old chain and 2 for the new.

Thanks
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Shestakov »

Hi Tim,
the old chain will be deleted automatically in accordance with the job`s retention.
You can delete restore points manually as well, but obviously, you will not be able to restore from those days.
Thanks!
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Tim783 »

Thanks Nikita,

Sorry its taken me a while to reply. When will the retention be applied? The Job is set to store 35 on disk I now have 42
Do I have to wait till the new vbk also has 35?

Thanks
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Shestakov »

Hello Tim,
The Job is set to store at least 35 restore points. Looks like you have 35 files in the 1st chain(1vbk+34vibs) and 7 files in the 2nd one (1vbk+6vibs). The 1st chain will be deleted when you have 35 restore points in the 2nd chain.
The 1st chain can not be deleted by retention until then because this way you will have less restore points than was preset.
Thanks!
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Tim783 »

Hi Nikita,

Thanks for that, makes perfect sense.
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Shestakov »

You are welcome, Tim!
Once you have a question, don`t hesitate asking!
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Ice-Dog »

v.Eremin wrote: Correct. But we are considering to add full backup compact functionality (same as in Backup Copy job) for primary backup jobs in the following releases. Thanks.
Hi,
I realise this is an old thread but I am trying to pour myself into Veeam and as I can see many other are I am too a bit confused about the VBK file and deleted VMs.

Does a Synthetic Full not free up blocks in the VBK file if VMs have been deleted and the VM Retention has passed? Is that a new feature in v9?

Also regarding the IO per byte are there any statistic on the difference running Synthetic full only vs. Synthetic full with transform? Does the transform add to IOs per byte as it does when doing reverse incremental?

Thanks for awesome product and answers.
Gunnar

p.s. any chance of finding that Backup mode spreead sheet updated for v9 anywhere?
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by dellock6 »

Hi Gunnar,
in v9 you have a new option of running compact operations against primary backups:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/vsp ... _file.html

for the I/O operations, I wrote a whitepaper few months ago, that is still up to date:
https://www.veeam.com/wp-veeam-backup-r ... mance.html

thanks,
Luca
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vExpert 2011 -> 2022
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Ice-Dog »

Hi Luca,

This paper was very helpful. I will use the intro for my business case of buying a second repository to use for Veeam Backup-copy. Although it does not cover the IO difference if there is any of a Synthetic full with and without a Rollback transform.

I will test a change of few of my smaller Backup job to incremental forever with set Restore points in order to spread the transformation IO usage. With the larger jobs I like having the transformation once a week (staggered out for each job) as then they are running and hammering the repository disks the next day the day instead of taking up Veeam task slots that each night injecting each nights incremental into the full. On that point I have a Development request. Allow us to schedule the Synthetic full to take place at a certain time instead of just after the incremental backup on the scheduled day. That way we could start the synthetic transformation at say 8am when the Backup Window is closed and not interfering with the incremental backups .

Does the compact procedure protect against bit rot?

But what is the purpose of VM Retention option if the original VBK file does not compact. Do the blocks in the VBK file get reused if different VMs would be added to the job instead of the ones taken out?

Lastly - compression. The performance testing with different block sizes. Can you clarify if these are Optimal, High and Extreme (512K, 25K and 128K)? Any good whitepapers on the compression element?

Thanks
Gunnar
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by foggy »

Ice-Dog wrote:Although it does not cover the IO difference if there is any of a Synthetic full with and without a Rollback transform.
Here is the outline of required I/O operations for different backup modes.
Ice-Dog wrote:Does the compact procedure protect against bit rot?
There's a health check operation for that.
Ice-Dog wrote:But what is the purpose of VM Retention option if the original VBK file does not compact. Do the blocks in the VBK file get reused if different VMs would be added to the job instead of the ones taken out?
Yes, blocks marked as free can be re-used for future data.
Ice-Dog wrote:Lastly - compression. The performance testing with different block sizes. Can you clarify if these are Optimal, High and Extreme (512K, 25K and 128K)? Any good whitepapers on the compression element?
Seems you're confusing storage optimization settings with compression.
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[MERGED] Backup type

Post by badams »

Sorry for all the questions. Hopefully, less or none once I get set up. I have read over the Forever forward, Incremental and Reverse Incremental quite a bit. I do not know how to figure out which is best for my particular backup situation. Thanks.
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Re: Backup type

Post by Shestakov »

Hello Bert,
It depends on your needs, repository quality etc. Here is a great explanation.
If you want the latest restore point to be full backup, go for reverse incremental, if you want less IO operations, try forever forward incremental.
Thanks!
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by badams »

That was very helpful. Thanks.

I was reading in a follow-up post the following:

It's important to keep in mind that selecting active the full backups option causes Veeam to revert to the traditional incremental retention and thus you will indeed need more space.

I am not sure what the difference is between Forever forward and "traditional incremental retention."

A lot of users state Forever forward -- Forever backup. I always read just Forever forward, which is rather clear. Was that the way it was said back in version 8? Finally, a lot of users recommended that a check box for Forever forward, rather than not checking synthetic backup would be helpful, but that was never implemented. Not saying it should be just on user suggestion, but do you have any feedback on that?
Shestakov
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Re: v8 New Forward Incremental-Forever Backup confusion

Post by Shestakov »

If you schedule either active or synthetic full, backup method is not forever forward, but just forward incremental.
Another checkbox is not needed if UI user understands the difference. I don't remember any requests about another check box.
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