Queries on GFS backups

[ithark]

Dear Team,
This is our current setup.
* Backing up our VMware environment directly to s3 using Veeam 12.
* We are currently running forever incremental only with no full backups with a retention of 30 days.
Requirement.
* To run monthly full backups.
* We have around 10 jobs and we would like to run these monthly backups on different dates so that none are overlapping with each other.
* To retain this monthly full backup for 8 months.

I had a look into GFS but was confused about how it can be implemented to achieve our requirements.

For example, for Job A to Job E, if we schedule monthly full backups from Day 1 to Day 5, on the GFS settings, if I choose the option, Monthly GFS cycle, since we don't do weekly backups, it says that the monthly backups are created on the first day of each month.
so essentially, it would ignore the already existing monthly full and it would create a new monthly full job?

Can you please help me on how to achieve this effectively?

Regards,
Karthik

[david.domask]

Hi Karthik,

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

I know this is a bit of a ready, but basically with just Monthly set, you will pick the week from which a Full backup should be made, and once the GFS period arrives, Veeam will begin looking for a Full backup to mark as weekly.

So in your case, just set which week the full backup will appear for your jobs, and once the full is made during that week, it will be marked with the GFS monthly flag.

[ithark]

Hi David,
Thanks for your reply.
So, for a particular job, Let's say I select "First Friday of the month" for the full schedule, and we select "first week" on the monthly GFS, this full backup will have the monthly tag set and will be retained for X number of months.
Sorry to ask this but I just wanted to confirm my doubts.

[david.domask]

Correct, that is how it will go for the workflow. The job will be "waiting' for a full point to appear during that time when it's waiting for a GFS point. So your strategy should work here.