Yet another retention strategy question

[ATIhelpdesk]

Before laying out my requirements, let me just say what I want:

In the production location I want about 26 restore points and ONLY the oldest one is a full. All others are incremental.

Ideally the first backup ever taken is a full (as it should be). Every additional backup is incremental. Once the retention count is reached, the oldest incremental should be merged into the full and that then becomes the only full restore point. In a sense, this is the opposite of a reverse incremental.

Why do I want this?

My protected systems are required by policy to be archived offsite as follows:
Daily: 6 Inc
End of Week: 3 Full
End of Month: 2 Full
End of Quarter: 3 Full
End of Year: 3 Full

The available bulk storage space is limited and must be split between local (production location) and offsite (Disaster Recovery) location. The DR site must meet the archiving scheme as listed above. The remaining space is given to the production side and retention there is the maximum allowed within the existing space. As such, production may have anywhere from 1 to about 30 restore points. The oldest of which should be a full. Since the available production space can only store a maximum of one full backup and some number of incrementals --and-- because we want to be able to recover the oldest possible protected content without needing to use the DR site archive, we need the oldest local backup to a full.

Does this make sense?

Currently, my local backup jobs are only incremental. There is no actual or synthetic full backup in the schedule. I am hoping that Veeam will do what I want. That is, retain the oldest backup as a full at all times and all others are inc.

Thank you,
jrohland

[PTide]

Hi,

Yes, that makes sense. If I correctly understood you you need this:

First, you setup a Forever-forward incremental backup job with 26 restore points, active/synthetic fulls disabled. That would give you your 26 restore points (including Full) on your main site with the only full being the rearmost.

Second, you setup a Backup Copy Job with Backup Job as a source, with 6 restore points, utilizing a GFS retention schema. That would give you your 6 points offsite + weeklies, monthlies, quartlies, yearlies:

Daily: 6 Inc
End of Week: 4 Full (every sunday)
End of Month: 12 Full (every last day of the month)
End of Quarter: 4 Full (every last day of the last month of the quarter)
End of Year: 3 Full (every last day of the year)

For example, if the end of the weeks matches the end of the month then the same restore point will be considered both as weekly and monthly full.

[ATIhelpdesk]

PTide, Yep you understood me and answered my question. Thank you.