Deleted VM retention with GFS archive copy

[andre.simard]

Hi,

What is happening with GFS archive when a Deleted VM retention is set?
If we have set a Deleted VM retention for exemple to 30 days and a deleted vm now pass this 30 days, is all achive of this vm (Monthly and yearly) will be deleted also or just the basic restore point?

Thank you

[DGrinev]

Hi Andre,

Deleted VM retention affects only regular backup chain, the GFS archive restore points will remain all VMs without changes. Thanks!

[andre.simard]

Excellent! Thank for the information.

[rstoner]

Hi, we are noticing that when a VM moves from one copy job to another, the GFS retention policy stops being applied. We have set the delete VM after x number of days but still, the original job just simply ignores GFS points. Has anyone else encountered this and how did you solve it other then going manually and deleting the GFS backups? We have over 1000 VMs with different classifications and some move from one classification to another and hence move backup jobs and we won't always know when a VM has moved.

I came to notice this behaviour cause at first we had a single copy job and due to the huge amount of data it had to ship everyday, we had to split it up into 4 jobs. Now the retention period has been long passed but backups are still there.

Thanks,
Roderick

[veremin]

Hi, we are noticing that when a VM moves from one copy job to another, the GFS retention policy stops being applied.

Could you elaborate on this? When a VM is moved from one backup copy job to the other, GFS retention policy specified on the previous job won't have any effect on this VM, since it's already in control by the new job. Thanks!

[rstoner]

So, assume the following config:
2 Copy Jobs. Each copy job has 200 restore points and 26 weekly GFS enabled. "Read the entire restore point from source backup instead of synthesizing it from increments" option is enabled (cause of DataDomain). The remove VM data after VM is deleted is set to 180 days. Our agency's retention policy is set to 6 months.

A VM is in Copy Job 1, it has been there since 11th Nov 2017, round about 1st March 2018, the VM has moved to Copy Job 2 and all is working well there including retention policy for both simple and GFS. Since 1st March 2018, Copy Job 1 states that VM is no longer being processed by job.. however the simple restore point retention is still being honored as VM data forming part of the 200 restore points is deleted as time goes by.

Fast forward to today and we noticed that this VM still has FULL Weekly restore points (from GFS), in Copy Job 1 from 11th Nov 2017 to just before 1st March 2018.

[veremin]

Got it, be aware that deleted VM retention settings do not affect GFS restore points (which stay intact after creation). Thanks!

[rstoner]

Yes, we noticed! But how can we remove these... we had hundreds of VMs move from one job to another due to change in classification, and now we are left with hundreds of terrabytes of backups which will never be deleted unless we go through each VM and delete them manually. This might also be breaching GDPR since we are keeping data for longer than our policy. Is there a Veeam approved way of performing such cleanups, other than doing so manually per each VM?

[veremin]

Basically, if you don't need old GFS restore points, you can either decrease GFS retention period to let backup server clean them up automatically or remove unneeded restore points manually. Thanks!

[rstoner]

We cannot decrease GFS since this will effect other VMs which are still being processed by Copy Job 1. Backup Server does not clean them up automatically, hence the whole point of this thread. so all that remains is delete them manually. The least thing I would expect from Veeam B&R is to honor the retention period of the GFS just like it does with the simple method. Maybe feature request?

[veremin]

We tend to consider GFS points an independent full backups that should be kept for prolongated period of time and should be modified anyhow after creation. Therefore, the said setting doesn't have any effect on those restore points.

However, thank you for feature request; highly appreciated.