Veeam and BUE integration

[AGGFanatic]

Thanks for the info.

What we are trying to achieve is to have max amount of retention on disk and replicate only the recent week to tape for DR purposes.

Is there a way to filter just to do the recent backup set to tapes?

[habibalby]

hello,
you can't achieve that since your configuring a retention period as a Maximum based on your disk size, because the retention period works as a chain of backup files and you can't exclude some of these backups and take the recent changes.

if you have a bigger capacity on disk, then configure another jobs with retention period as 1 and you'll always have 1 backup file and when it runs Veeam will delete the previous files. after that you can configure Backup Exec with another job to backup these files which has got Retention as 1 to tape for DR purpose.

hope it helps.

[AGGFanatic]

we created a job in veeam with post command to call BUE. in BUE we have a job with full and differential setup, does it know when to do full and differential?

[habibalby]

it won't know that as you are restricted to the Reset Archive-Bit.
what's in your mind you want to achieve ? I might able to answer you.

thanks

[AGGFanatic]

Ok.

Lets say:

Veeam (on disks)
Week 1 Full
Week 1 Incremental
Week 1 Incremental
Week 1 Incremental
Week 1 Incremental

Week 2 Full
Week 2 Incremental
Week 2 Incremental
Week 2 Incremental
Week 2 Incremental

Week 3, and Week 4.

The above is our Veeam job, and we keep these for 4 weeks.
We use BUE to offload the most recent one for DR purposes.

On post-command after the veeam job, it calls BUE2012 using .ps1 script (at the moment it's not working, so this is disabled at this stage)

We want to offload veeam files to tape - we have a BUE job (full and differential) - FULL meaning offload only .VBK and DIFF .VIB files.

We want to know, how do we create a .PS1 to offload .VBK on FULL, and then .VIB on DIFF.

Basically, what we want is using a post-command to do the following (recent set):

BUE2012

Week 1 Full (Veeam) > Week 1 Full (BUE)
Week 1 Incremental (Veeam) > Week 1 Diff (BUE)
Week 1 Incremental (Veeam) > Week 1 Diff (BUE)
Week 1 Incremental (Veeam) > Week 1 Diff (BUE)
Week 1 Incremental (Veeam) > Week 1 Diff (BUE)

We've got the veeam backup jobs going, but still need some work on BUE.

I hope you are able to help.

Cheers.

[habibalby]

Hi,

Since you keep 4 week on disk and you want to offload the last week to tape, if you run the Backup Exec, it will backup the whole weeks backup chain "Week-1, Week-2, Week-3 & Week-4". In this case if I were you I would run a post script on every backup job OR a batch script to reset the Archive Attributes of Week-1, Week-2, Week-3 and keep only Week-4 as Ready for Archive. Do this on whenever you run the Backup. In this method, if you run the Backup Exec job as Full Backup Configured with Reset Archive Bit, it will backup only Week-4 to tape and will leave the reset backup chains untouched because they are not Ready for Archive. Once the Backup Exec finished successfully, then the Archive Attributes will be reset it on Week-4 Backup Chain.

attrib.exe * -a C:\Backup\Week-1\*.*
attrib.exe * -a C:\Backup\Week-2\*.*
attrib.exe * -a C:\backup\Week-3\*.*

I hope I got it right and I answered you correct. Let me know!

Thanks,

[AGGFanatic]

How do I write a batch script to reset the archive attributes? And how does it reset the attribute?

Just to understand this, let say after the 1st week of archiving, the 2nd week which would be Friday (Full), will this overwrite anything on tape and only have the full backup file? And after the 2nd week of backup up until Thursday, does it reset the archive bit? Or does it reset every day?

I just need a step-by-step understanding of this.

[habibalby]

Hi Adam,
What you need exactly to backup last week of the Month to tape for DR purpose? If yes, then as I have explaine earlier Reset the Archive Bit of each week and keep only last week as Ready for Archiving.

You can reset them by the above command attrib.exe, to the directory, subdirectories and files.

[AGGFanatic]

Yes I understand that, but how do we reset each week? After Thursday?

Friday Full (Reset)
Mon Diff (No reset)
Tues Diff (No reset)
Wed Diff (No reset)
Thur Diff (No reset) - at this point we should be resetting all the Diffs so when the next Full takes place, it will backup the latest

Question is, how do we add the attribute to the script? And also how do we add to do Fri Full and the rest Diff? At the moment, we are only running Diff.

[AGGFanatic]

Ok, I think I have an idea.

I need to come up with a script to do FULL on Fridays, and DIFF from Mondays to Thursdays.
And on Thursdays, it will do a reset within the folder.

How do I write a script to do this?

[habibalby]

Hello Adam,

Question is, how do we add the attribute to the script? And also how do we add to do Fri Full and the rest Diff? At the moment, we are only running Diff.

There is no script will do a Full or Incremental backup for you, the Veeam Configuration will do the rest of the job on your behalf, Full at First Run and Incremental till you reach the Synthetic window or Full Active Backup window that depends on your configuration.

If you relay on Veeam Job Scheduler you can create a Windows Batch Script to run separately against your Backup Repositories Folders;

Code: Select all

attrib.exe * -a C:\Backup\Week-1\*.* #This script will reset the Archive Bit of any files located under C:\Backup\Week-1 directory. 

Put this script in a batch file and run it with the Windows Task Scheduler

In here; what is your Retention Period on Disk and Deleted Item from Disk:

Friday Full (Reset)
Mon Diff (No reset)
Tues Diff (No reset)
Wed Diff (No reset)
Thur Diff (No reset)

As you said earlier you keep 3 Weeks on disk and you want to backup Week-4 to tape.. In this case your Retention period + Deleted Items from Disk is very important to determine when to run your Backup before the items expired as per your retention period and the backup files gets deleted.

Yes I understand that, but how do we reset each week? After Thursday?

Yes after Thursday when Veeam Backup is over.

Hope it helps,

[habibalby]

In my environment;

[*]Jobs configured on Veeam without Schedule.
[*]Jobs run through PowerShell Script that configured via Windows Task Scheduler configured as Daily and Weekly tasks on different timing.
[*]My Retention period set to 5 for both Restore Points to Keep on Disk + Deleted VMs data retention Period.
[*]Jobs configured as Active Full Backup on Friday.
[*]Jobs run Sunday ~ Thursday as Incremental.

• Week-2
  Friday - Full
  Sun - Incr
  Mon - Incr
  Tue - Incr
  Wed - Incr # Here previous Week Week-1 Chain will be deleted and as per the Retention Policy
  Thu - Incr # I run my Weekly Full Backup in Symantec Exec to include full backup chain of Week-2
  
  Week-3
  Friday - Full
  Sun - Incr
  Mon - Incr
  Tue - Incr
  Wed - Incr # Here previous Week Week-2 Chain will be deleted and as per the Retention Policy
  Thu - Incr # I run my Weekly Full Backup in Symantec Exec to include full backup chain of Week-3

On Friday I have Full Active Backup this file .VBK will be a new file and ready for Archiving. If I run my daily incremental job in Symantec Backup Exec, it will include the Full Active Backup that runs on last week Friday, but to avoid that I run

Code: Select all

attrib.exe * -a against C:\Backup\BackupJobName\*.* to reset the Archive of Full Active Backup

, the script runs every Sunday at 11:00am before my Veeam Backup Starts and when Symantec Runs on Sunday as Incremental it will include only the .VIB file that generated on Sunday.

[AGGFanatic]

Thanks Habibalby!

I've got it going eventually. Took some time to figure everything out, its so more to the individual, as the setup is different from one business to another, but used a similar concept.

In summary, what I've done:

Setup and configured Veeam to backup to disk for 3 weeks
Veeam setup to do Forward Incremental (Friday Full Active, and Mon through to Thurs incremental)
Our storage can only hold 3 sets, otherwise Veeam job will fail when trying to create new .VBK file
Created a script and added to Task Scheduler to run the attribute
A post-command script after Veeam to offload Veeam files to tape via BUE2012

We needed to do what we want it to do, so at the moment its running quite nicely.

Will monitor and let you know how we go with this.

[habibalby]

Thanks for the update

[bernardw]

AGGFanatic,

Would you be willing to post your scripts that you used to create your jobs? I am looking to do the exact same thing (but with Backup Exec 2010).

I would think this method of archiving off only the most recent VBK file to tape would be normal but I am having a hard time finding some instructions on how to do it. (ok so I am just starting so any resources to point me in the right direction would be appreciated).

[habibalby]

AGGFanatic,

Would you be willing to post your scripts that you used to create your jobs? I am looking to do the exact same thing (but with Backup Exec 2010).

I would think this method of archiving off only the most recent VBK file to tape would be normal but I am having a hard time finding some instructions on how to do it. (ok so I am just starting so any resources to point me in the right direction would be appreciated).

Check out here and let us know how it goes.
http://dailyvmtech.wordpress.com/2012/1 ... owershell/

http://dailyvmtech.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... xec-2010/e