Veeam copy interval and powered off endpoints question

[Anguel]

Hi,

Let's say I have a copy job which interval is set to 7 days but some endpoints (mainly notebooks) don't power on during that time so their restore points will never arrive during this interval.
On the other hand I have entered a schedule for the job, to be active only on the weekend.
My requirement is that after the job schedule expires after the weekend I can do my own further processing of the Veeam backups during the week with my own script that runs as soon as the job run finishes.
Unfortunately, although the schedule expires, the job never finishes and never executes the script because of the powered off endpoints, and the job waits until the end of the copy interval, although it is clear that nothing more will happen.
If I understand correctly, there is no way to tell Veeam that it should just finish the copy interval as soon as the schedule expires so there is no way to solve this annoying problem. Or maybe I am missing something?

Thanks in advance,
Anguel

[PetrM]

Hi Anguel,

Could you please clarify the purpose of using the script? What exactly would you like to do with backups?

Thanks!

[Anguel]

I combine the Veeam backups with other backups I perform using Robocopy from NASes and automatically copy everything to rotated encrypted external USB drives on attach. All of this is proven and works well except the Veeam part.

UPDATE: The Veeam script should only set a flag that the Veeam copy job has finished on the weekend.

[Anguel]

As I did not get an answer, I would like to add some more info to this:
It turns out that Veeam always keeps its .vib backup files on my backup copy repository (Windows 10) *open*, while it is waiting for the missing notebook backups to arrive, which in many cases simply never happens as some notebooks are used rarely. So, although I have limited the copy job schedule to the weekend only, the .vib remains open and this completely prevents other programs like robocopy from successfully copying the .vib to external USB drives. Is this "keeping the file open" while pending for restore points really required? Why aren't the .vib files closed while the copy job schedule is not active?
So the question is: What can be done about this without having to disable the copy job or having to restart the Win10 repository computer?

[PetrM]

Hi Anguel,

Please accept my apologies for overlooking your previous message. The only idea which comes to me is to run backup copy in "Immediate (mirroring)" mode, I suppose it does not hold file lock unlike the periodic backup copy. You may find more information about different modes of backup copy job on this page of our help center.

Thanks!

[Anguel]

Thanks Petr, so if I understand correctly, I can select "immediate" with my primary repo as source and set retention to 1 restore point only in order to get just the latest restore point for every PC or notebook (regardless of how old it is). In addition I should set my copy schedule to the weekend only in order to prevent Veeam from interfering with robocopy which will then copy everything to USB during the week. Or did I miss something?

[Mildur]

Hi Anguel, Hi Petr

Anguel is talking about Notebooks and Pcs. If they are backed-up as workstations, then this are managed by Agent and therefore cannot use the immediate backup copy mode.

[Anguel]

Hi Mildur, now I actually remember that you already stated this in another thread.
As a micro-business I even use Agent Free for Windows for those notebooks.
But for the copy job it seems I can select a whole repository (containing my PC jobs) as source an then I can select the immediate mode. Or do you think that it will just not copy anything as the original backup jobs are coming from the free agent and are not compatible?
For clarification I have:
PCs with Veeam Agent Free -> Backup Job -> Primary Backup Repo -> Backup Copy Job -> Secondary Backup Repo

[Mildur]

Hi Anguel

I have never tried free agents or managed by agent in a production environment. But I trust the guide.
It‘s at least documented on two veeam guides (VBR and VAW), that for immediate backup copy mode, the agent backup jobs must be running as managed by backup server.

Standalone installations will not be processed by the immediate backup copy job. Even if you choose entire repository.

Must have something todo with vbr doesn‘t have main control over the backup jobs and it‘s backup files.

I can give it a try tomorrow in my lab, but I‘m afraid I will face this limitation as written in the guides.

[Anguel]

Hi Mildur,
After reading the docs it seems to be exactly as you say. I also remember that I did not see anything to select when I chose "from jobs" for the immediate copy settings. So I expect it to copy just nothing when I select "from repo" as it probably will only look for compatible jobs which I don't have. So you are right I think, as usual

As we are at it, do you know if at least one restore point will be kept in periodic copy mode if I set let's say 14 restore points to keep but a notebook does not appear for more than 14 days? Will the last restore point for that notebook stay in the backup copy or will it disappear? At least for the primary repo it seems to stay there but now I am not sure for the backup COPY repo.
This is also important because I want to set up a hardened linux repo for copy jobs. If I set an immutability period for 14 days but a notebook does not appear for these 14 days and if its latest restore point goes out of immutability scope and if then malware strikes that would be a problem, as there will be no immutable backup for that notebook anymore. Puh, that can get tricky I think
The problem is that one can easily guarantee daily backups for VMs but not for mobile notebooks, and this is a big problem that Veeam is still not able to handle properly.

[Mildur]

Thanks

Veeam has a safety feature against that scenario.
Veeam will always keep a minimum of three restore points (default setting, can be adjusted with a reg key from support), even if there are no new restore points in the last 2 weeks.
The guide writes about a backup copy job which was stopped for longer than the retention policy.
But it should also be valid in your case, when no new agent backup appeared on the source repository or if there was any issue with the agent in the backup copy job which led to backup errors.

The problem is that one can easily guarantee daily backups for VMs but not for mobile notebooks, and this is a big problem that Veeam is still not able to handle properly.

You can use Veeam Backup Agent Cache to handle this scenario. If the backup target is not available, veeam creates a backup to the cache disk in the notebook and upload it‘s content as soon the notebook has a connection to the vbr server.

[Anguel]

Thanks, Mildur. That sounds good.
Now I will only have to see how to solve my initial problem with the open VIB files. Maybe some scripts can be used to disable and reenable the job, although this is not an elegant solution. I still don't see a real reason why Veeam should leave files in a "remote" repository on another server open, while waiting for new backups to arrive when the schedule says that the copy job will continue at the end of the week.