Workstation retension not effecting

[Murshid]

I've configured backups for Virtual Machines, Servers, and Workstations to my NAS.

I am using GFS Media Pool for tape backup.(just mentioning)

The retention policy is set to 7 days for all backups to NAS, with "Keep certain full backups for archival purposes" set to 1 week and 1 month.

The retention policy works as expected for my servers and VMs:

- It keeps one full backup for 1 month.
- It keeps a Weekly full backup ( After that incremental backup till next week full backup).

After 7 days, it deletes the weekly full backup and its associated incremental backups.

However, this isn't the case for my Workstations. While it correctly keeps one full backup for 1 month, the weekly backups and incrementals aren't being deleted after the retention period. As a result, I now have two weeks of full backups with their associated incrementals, plus the monthly full backup, for all of my Workstations.

Any Idea what it might be as it is effecting only the workstation not server and VM.

[marina.skobeleva]

Hi Mohamed,

Retention policy for Workstations works differently: Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows takes into account not calendar days but days on which backup files were successfully created.

You can find more details in our User Guides:

• about retention policy for Workstation mode - here

• about the difference between product editions (Free, Workstation, Servers) - here

For Workstation edition, 7 days in Retention settings != weekly

If backup job was not working for past X days that would not affect existing restore points. So in your case, it looks like for two weeks you have 7 restore points for Workstations.

Thanks!

[Murshid]

I am Using Veeam backup and replication Enterprise plus edition.

My backup jobs are are working continuously

For two weeks i have 12 restore point now for my workstations

For Workstation edition, 7 days in Retention settings != weekly ( i know )

i am using GFS Media pool for that i have to enable " Keep certain full backup for longer archival purpose - 1 week"

[Gostev]

This is the very nature of incremental backup. 7 days retention with weekly backups means you will have the number of restore points fluctuating between 7 and 13, because the entire previous incremental backup chain (full backup + all related increments) cannot be removed until the last increment is still under retention.

[Murshid]

The entire incremental chains for the first weekly ( before the new weekly backup) backups retention is also over

Friday - Synthetic full backup
sat - no backup
sun - no backup
Monday - Incremental
Tuesday - Incremental
Wednesday - Incremental
Thursday - Incremental

Friday - Synthetic full backup
sat - no backup
sun - no backup
Monday - Incremental
Tuesday - Incremental
Wednesday - Incremental
Thursday - Incremental

Friday - Synthetic full backup
.
.
Starting from the First Friday till Thursday the retention period for each backup is finished but data still not deleted
The third week started and My NAS have no space and the data for first Friday still not deleted.

i have the same setup for my servers and its backups are deleting when retention period is reached for the last incremental backup.

[Gostev]

I'm not sure I understand what are you saying, however I can only reiterate that the only correct behavior for classic incremental backup with periodic synthetic or active fulls is having MORE restore points on storage than the defined retention policy. Because any other behavior would mean that we're leaving unusable increments on the backup storage (those for restore points still under retention, and yet dependent on the already removed full backup).

So perhaps you're using a different backup mode for your server backup jobs e.g. forever-incremental with no periodic fulls.