Manually recreate files without compating or gfs

[Filippo1975]

Goodmornig Everybody,
we are veeam vcsp and we offer both remote backup and replica service. Everything is fine. in this last mounths we are moving our customers backup from one old smb share (this is a nas); to an iSCSI disk formatted in refs, to gain the benefits of fast clone. Everytime we move files from one repo to another, we must schedule the database compact, or the gfs creation, in order to let veeam recreate the full backup file in refs and let to get the benefits of fast clone.
We have to do the same operation even the first time we import the seeded backup in a temporary nas to refs, when we get the firs time backup from one customer..
Do you know is there a way to let the creation of full backup or the compact without veeam ?
is there a way to avoid this operation, or doing manually?
thanks everybody.

[foggy]

Hi Filippo, this is not possible outside of Veeam B&R and you cannot avoid creating a new full on ReFS repository - otherwise fastclone will not be possible. What you could do is making a new backup copy job full run to the new repo instead of copying the old chain there and then map the remote backup copy job to this new full.

[Filippo1975]

Hi foggy,
thanks for your reply.. but these backups works over a wan.. the first full backup is enogh big, the incremental backups are smaller.. so when we start the backup we use to make a full backup on a temporary nas than we move it on ours datacenter and we upload it to refs repository, than we mapped the local backup copy to our reposistory via cloud connect... using the full backup in this enviroment is impossibile

[foggy]

I thought you have your current NAS repository at the same location as the new one, in that case, you wouldn't need to perform a full over WAN.

[Filippo1975]

Hi foggy!
what do you think about this?

http://blog.dewin.me/2017/02/under-hood ... oning.html

[foggy]

Well, as Timo mentioned at the bottom, this is not really supported since is done outside of Veeam B&R. Also, you will not be able to map to such a full as it doesn't have VBM referring to it (though there are ways to create VBM as well).

[Filippo1975]

Hi Foggy,
dispite all, I'm trying to go forward on my issue...You are right.. if I try use external tools, I will be ouf of support, I understand.. so I'm looking for a workaround to accomplish this job: I want to move all from a traditional smb share to a new refs volume repository, for gaining the fast clone benefits, but in order to avoid to contact customer and scheduling compacting or gfs creation.
What I discover is:
1) if I use the backups export option to export backup from the old repository to new one (i use powershell, with the gui we can't specify an alternate location) it's a simply a normal copy, exactly the same I will obtain I manually copy the files..; the backup created in the refs folder is not ready for the fast clone;

2) if I use the restore point export option from the old repository to new one THIS DOES WORK!!!!
the new created file is fast clone ready, the file is not defragment, the blocks are contiguos, because in this case the content of the file is written on the disk, is not just a copy of an already defragted file...It borns on the refs and so it's compliant for fast clone....

Unfortunately with the second option it creates a vbk file that cannot be mapped to an existing backup (i've open the xml file vbm, it's different like a standard vbm backup file)... and another thing is if the source backup is encrypted I've to ask my customer to insert it an shared session, and I think I will lost the encryption on the exported backup

So do you know if there is workaround to let the veeam server on the cloud connect side to simply recreate the vbk file instead to just copy it ?
can I mannually run the vbk compact or gfs creation from the cloud connect ?



Hope I let me understand...

[foggy]

so when we start the backup we use to make a full backup on a temporary nas than we move it on ours datacenter and we upload it to refs repository, than we mapped the local backup copy to our reposistory via cloud connect...

Maybe I'm missing something, but why don't you use a backup copy job from the temp NAS to the new repo instead of just uploading (copying) backups there?

[Filippo1975]

Hi Foggy,
the temporary nas is just a seeding device.. when we have to move a big copy job to our datacenter we create a backup copy that point to a tempory portable nas; when it's all finished and we have got a full backup, we disable the local job; we move the nas to our datacenter, than again we move the data from the temporary nas, to a sobr repository behind of that there is the refs repository.
After we finish to upload data, we scan our cloud connect server to let it see the new backups; then we rescan by the tenant side their cloud connect resource, and then we map the job to the uploaded data in refs

[foggy]

Yes, and if you use a one-off temporary backup copy instead of just copying/moving data from the portable NAS to a SOBR, the full backup created there will be ReFS ready.