Veeam B&R Restore points

[Tsalm]

Hello All,

I am the new Veeam admin in my IT department and have little experience with this software. I am trying to wrap my head around the retention's and restore points in Veeam. On one of my jobs i see that there is 3 "restore points" set to be kept on disk. We are using normal Incremental backups that run everyday and have "Active Full" backups set to run every Saturday. With those settings in mind I was told that we would have 3.VBK files on disk and then the .VIB files that are taken every day and after the 4th .VBK file is created the oldest one would be deleted to get back to 3 restore points. Here is where I am getting confused... I look in my Veeam backup repository where all the VIBs and VBKs are stored and I do not see this happening. Right now there is only 1VBK and 4 VIB files.


While i have been browsing the forums and other various sources it looks like that every VIB and VBK counts as a restore point which means I'd only have 1 VBK and 2 VIBS on disk until the next VBK can be created. Also, does Veeam automatically run a full backup other than the Active Full? What if i do not have Active Fulls set, will there only be incremental backups?


Apologies ahead of time if this is confusing. I appreciate any help that can be provided.





Trevor S

[foggy]

Hi Trevor, this KB should answer all your questions, however, feel free to ask any further ones in case something is still not clear.

[Tsalm]

Hey Foggy, I appreciate the fast reply. Just to make sure I am 100% clear on this... Since we do Active Full's in my environment that means if I set 3 restore points in the job and the Active Full set to every Saturday my backup chain would be sort of like this... [Saturday-VBK / Monday-VIB / Tuesday VIB / Wednesday VIB / Thursday VIB / Friday VIB / Saturday VBK ] - 1 restore point [Saturday-VBK / Monday-VIB / Tuesday VIB / Wednesday VIB / Thursday VIB / Friday VIB / Saturday VBK ] - 2 restore points [Saturday-VBK / Monday-VIB / Tuesday VIB / Wednesday VIB / Thursday VIB / Friday VIB / Saturday VBK ] - 3 restore points. Now would it delete the first chain of backups after the 4th is completed so that there is ATLEAST always 3 restore points on disk?


Trevor S

[foggy]

No, each file in the chain (either VBK or VIB) is a separate restore point, so you will end up with Saturday-VBK / Monday-VIB / Tuesday VIB / Wednesday VIB / Thursday VIB / Friday VIB during the first week and then Saturday VBK / Monday-VIB / Tuesday VIB will be added until the moment the first part of the chain (1 VBK and 5 VIBs from Monday till Friday) will be deleted, leaving you with the required 3 restore points: Saturday VBK / Monday-VIB / Tuesday VIB. Then it will continue the same way, so the number of files on disk will vary from day to day.

[Tsalm]

Ahh OK. Thank you for clearing that up. I think I have a good handle on this now.


Trevor S