BCJ with GFS enabled creates 2 Weekly VBK files

[Hoegimator]

Hello all,

We are running B&R v9.5 and our Backup Copy Jobs create two weekly fullbackup files, if the option "Read the entire restore point from source backup instead of synthesizing it from increments" is enabled.
As an example, lets take a single fileserver-BCJ with the above option enabled, GFS enabled (Weekly backup on Sunday 06:00). This bcj creates a VBK file for the Saturday AND Sunday job.

I don't understand why that happens...

Any thoughts on that?

Thanks
Joerg

[Hoegimator]

The GFS retention is:

Weekly 4
Monthly 2
Quarterly 2
Yearly 0

In fact we have 4 Weekly fullbackups: 08.April / 09.April / 15.Arpil / 16.April
I cannot see a reason to have a .vbk on Saturday 08.&15.April and Sunday 09.&16.April. This makes no sense....

[Shestakov]

Hello Joerg,
Looks like Saturday .vbk is full backup of the main chain while Sunday`s one is a part of GFS retention.
Thanks

[Shestakov]

In fact we have 4 Weekly fullbackups: 08.April / 09.April / 15.Arpil / 16.April

This seems strange though. Could you check which of the full backups relate to GFS retention? The backups should have such postfixes as W M Y.
Thanks!

[Hoegimator]

Here are ALL the files from that backup copy job

FileSrv005-CopyJob.vbm
FileSrv005-CopyJob2016-12-25T210000_Q.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJob2017-02-26T210000_M.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJob2017-03-26T210000_Q.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-08T213000_W.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-09T213000_W.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-10T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-11T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-12T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-13T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-14T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-15T213000_W.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-16T213000_W.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-17T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-18T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-19T213000.vib
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-20T213000.vib

[Shestakov]

FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-08T213000_W.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-09T213000_W.vbk
...
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-15T213000_W.vbk
FileSrv005-CopyJobD2017-04-16T213000_W.vbk

Let me check this out with R&D team. What product version are you at?

[Hoegimator]

B&R 9.5.0.823

[Shestakov]

That`s turned to be a bug which was investigated recently. It`s going to be fixed in the next major release.
The workaround is to disable the mentioned check box.

[Hoegimator]

OK thanks, I did disable it already.

[Shestakov]

Here is a fresh workaround to get only one full backup with "Read the entire restore point from source backup instead of synthesizing it from increments" enabled.
What you need to do is just to set time of weekly GFS point creation later than job starting time.
Thanks!

[Hoegimator]

In my example above (FileSrv005-CopyJob), the job starting time is 09:30pm and the "weekly GFS point creation" is at Sunday 06:00am. I'm not sure if that workaround works....

[Shestakov]

Yes, that`s a buggy configuration. Have you tried to schedule "weekly GFS point creation" afternoon and the job starting time at morning?

[Hoegimator]

Yes I tried that, didn't make a difference.

On another job, where I disabled "Read the entire restore point from source backup instead of synthesizing it from increments" the incremental files are not deleted anymore.

CopyJob.vbm
CopyJob2016-12-30T233000_Q.vbk
CopyJob2017-01-27T233000_M.vbk
CopyJob2017-02-24T233000_M.vbk
CopyJob2017-03-31T233000_Q.vbk
CopyJob2017-04-01T233000.vib
CopyJob2017-04-02T233000.vib
CopyJob2017-04-03T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-04T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-05T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-06T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-07T233000_W.vbk
CopyJobD2017-04-08T233000_W.vbk
CopyJobD2017-04-09T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-10T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-11T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-12T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-13T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-14T233000_W.vbk
CopyJobD2017-04-15T233000_W.vbk
CopyJobD2017-04-16T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-17T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-18T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-19T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-20T233000_W.vbk
CopyJobD2017-04-21T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-22T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-23T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-24T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-25T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-26T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-27T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-28T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-29T233000.vib
CopyJobD2017-04-30T233000.vib

The GFS settings are:
Restore points to keep: 14
Weekly: 4
Monthly: 4
Quarterly: 1
Yearly: 0

On version 9.0 it work fine.

[Shestakov]

That`s an unexpected behavior.
Please contact Veeam technical support.
Thanks!

[Hoegimator]

Yes dis is unexpected and I found other jobs, also backup jobs, with similar problems.
The fix for me was to temporary change the number of "Restore points to keep", a.e. on the bcj above I changed it from 14 to 11 or on a backup job from 30 to 29, and run the job again.

[Shestakov]

Thanks for the update. The behavior is buggy, so once you contact a support team, please share your support case number with us.

[Hoegimator]

Case #02143467 was created

[Shestakov]

Thanks!
I`ll follow it as well.

[Hoegimator]

About the BCJ problem, the solution from support was same workaround (below line).
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
From what I can see it seems a bug and as for now we have only this workaround and an example:

For backup copy with GFS (copy every 1 day) with "read entire restore point" option selected. If the time of "weekly" GFS point creation is between [0:00 - start of copy interval], the GFS point will be created twice.

[Example 1] Backup copy starts its interval at 9:00. Weekly GFS is scheduled on Friday at 8:00.

The first copy interval will be [Thursday 9:00 - Friday 9:00]. The job will consider it fitting because the time of GFS point creation is 8:00 on Friday.

The second copy interval will be [Friday 9:00 - Saturday 9:00]. The job will consider it fitting again because it covers Friday, and it will make another GFS VBK.

Solution:
Change the schedule of the weekly GFS restore point so that its time will only fit following window: [After the start of the last copy interval - 23:59]. In [Example 1], schedule it at any time between [9:01 and 23:59].

[Shestakov]

Thanks for updating Joerg, does the workaround work for you?
I`m curious because the support`s answer is pretty much same to I wrote above.

Have you got a resolution of undeleted .vibs?