GFS policy with forever forward incrementals backups

[Alvaro]

Hello

GFS policies apply only to full backups. OK
When a full is marked by a GFS, this full cannot be modified or deleted until the retention period has expired. OK

But ... if I have a FOREVER FORWARD INCREMENTAL chain with a retention of 7 restore points ... and I apply a monthly GFS to the full ... This full could not be modified so the chain incrementals could not be injected into the full. So ... would my chain keep growing until I reach 30 incrementals? This contradicts my policy of only retaining 7 restore points.
What policy prevails?

When the GFS expires all the leftover incrementals are injected into the full ??


In the manual it comes that it is not possible to apply GFS to reverse incremental ... but I do not understand how it would work in a forever forward incremental type chain

Thank you!

[Dima P.]

Hello Alan,

GFS in primary jobs requires active full backup or synthetic full backup to be enabled. GFS policy will be ignored if backup job runs in forever forward incremental backup mode and periodic full backups are not created (you still can create active fulls manually or by scripting periodic full backup creation). Pleas take a look at this article for more details - Long-Term Retention Policy (GFS). Cheers!

[Alvaro]

I was thinking the same..but in the manual I have only read that GFS is not compatible only with reverse incremental...but it say nothing about forever forward incremental.

My conclusion is:
if I have forever forward incremental..I will not be abl to apply GFS. I can only apply this policy with forward incremental

Thank you Dima P

[veremin]

To be honest there, is a note about forward forever incremental mode in the UG's section Dmitry mentioned:

GFS retention policy applies to forever forward incremental backup chain only if you periodically create full backups manually or using scheduled scripts. For more information on cmdlets that you can use in scripts, see the Veeam PowerShell Reference Guide.

Thanks!

[Alvaro]

Thank you very much Veremin for your contribution.

I was thinking the same thing but now with your comment I am sure.

A cordial greeting

[veremin]

You're welcome - it never hurts to ask for additional confirmation Glad to hear that you've found my input helpful. Thanks!