Question regarding synthetic fulls and scheduling

[cstemaly]

We are backing up some servers every friday night. We are retaining 4 points, so we can go back a month if we need to. Currently, I am doing reverse incremental backups with CBT, and then when the job is done I use robocopy to copy the files offsite (1Gb/s Fiber link). There are fifty-one servers in this job and the total size of the main vbk file is around 4 TB. I'd like to switch to the forward incremental method, and my questions are regarding Active/Synthetic Fulls.

From what I'm reading, I don't HAVE TO run active fulls, so I'd like to just do synthetic fulls. Synthetic Fulls don't actually touch my VMs; they basically run in the background on data that already exists. This weekly job runs on Friday night at 5:30. If I edit the job, and turn on the synthetic fulls for Sunday, will the main job run on Friday, and then the synthetic job runs on Sunday?

A different way to pose this question is: Will a Synthetic Full job run on a non-scheduled day?

[foggy]

Synthetic never comes alone without incremental run. On a synthetic full day, Veeam B&R performs incremental backup as usual and then, at the end of the backup job, creates synthetic full. If the job is not scheduled to run on that day, synthetic will not be created. (However, this is not the case with active fulls.)

[cstemaly]

Thanks Foggy, that answers it!

[Gostev]

If the job is not scheduled to run on that day, synthetic will not be created. (However, this is not the case with active fulls.)

Actually, as of 6.1 any type of full backup (whether synthetic or active) will run on the day it is scheduled to run, whether or not the job itself is scheduled to run on this day via the "main" job scheduler. Without this, there were way too many support cases with endless incremental chains because of contradicting schedules.

[cstemaly]

Ok Gostev, so what you're saying is that if I set my incremental backup to run only on Friday at 5:30PM, and then I set a synthetic backup to occur on Sunday (without it being "scheduled" in the schedule part of the job properties) that the synthetic will run? I am on 6.1.

[Gostev]

That is correct, the synthetic full backup will run on Sunday just as you want it to (your periodic job schedule will not matter). Prior to synthetic full assembly on Sunday, incremental backup run will happen first - as it is essential to build the new full backup containing "Sunday" state of your VMs.

[jpeake]

I am trying Veeam demo, don't see this in the documentation:

If I run reverse incrementals, and choose "on week-days" in the schedule, but have Active Fulls set for Saturday, will the Active Full fire (since the schedule option only specifies weekdays)?

If so, will the post-backup script run on Saturday after the active full?

My post backup script on each job fires off a corresponding "offsite" job containing the same VM's per job. Those jobs are not scheduled (they are only called using post-backup script from "main" job) and are set to normal incremental with synthetic full on Saturday. Will the offsite synthetic full fire in this scenario?

Worst case, I guess I'll find out this weekend

[rct]

Hello,

We have scheduled 1 job to start at 22PM on week-days. We scheduled others jobs to run one by one after this one.
We set up synthetic full to run on Friday but as have experimented, the jobs that began on Saturday (or Sunday) didn't process the synthetic full.

To workaround this issue I tried to schedule synthetic on Friday,Saturday and Sunday but I was surprised to see that every job has been processed 3 times (Friday, Saturday and Sunday ?) this week-end.
As I can see, it seems that the synthetic full schedule :
- is scheduled to be processed or not at the end of the incremental production
- launch an incremental to produce the synthetic when an incremental is not scheduled

I'm not really sure how that works and how to make it work. Could you bring me your lights ?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

Yes, prior synthetic full your backup job schedules an incremental pass to get VM's latest state, also synthetic backup happens on the day you've chosen in the job settings. Can you please tell me a bit more info on what you're trying to achieve? Do you need to run synthetic backup for your jobs on a specific day or you just want to run it each weekend?

Thanks!

[rct]

The goal is to produce a synthetic full each week-end.
The problem is that we schedule our jobs with the "after this job" method so we can't know on which day each job will be processed.

Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

We set up synthetic full to run on Friday but as have experimented, the jobs that began on Saturday (or Sunday) didn't process the synthetic full.

To workaround this issue I tried to schedule synthetic on Friday,Saturday and Sunday but I was surprised to see that every job has been processed 3 times (Friday, Saturday and Sunday ?) this week-end.

Just to make sure I got you correctly - you've selected Friday to run synthetic full for your backup jobs, but it didn't work. On the second time, however, it did work but on all three days you've selected (even Friday), right?

[rct]

Yes you're right.

[Vitaliy S.]

So the job was configured in the same way, but for some reason you've observed different behavior? Can you please send your recent job logs to our support team for review? And I would appreciate if you could tell me your ticket number.

[rct]

It's case # 00192937

[jackycheung]

Since we can only specify the day (but not the time) for the full backup, what time exactly do the synthetic and active full process run if it is scheduled:
1. on a day that incremental is also scheduled to run?
2. on a day that incremental has not been scheduled to run?

Thanks a lot!

[Vitaliy S.]

1. Synthetic full will start right after the incremental job pass. If you schedule incremental and active full on the same day, only active full will be triggered.
2. It will be started at the time that was set by the job schedule for the other days.

[Allen Kong]

Something I have noticed is that the synthetic full job is started after the incremental job finishes.

If the incremental job starts on a "Synthetic Full Day" but finishes on a day that is not a "Synthetic Full Day" then a synthetic full is not made.

For example;

Synth fulls are set for Weds and Sat. The inc job starts on Wednesday 2200hrs and finishes on Thursday 0130hrs. No Synthetic Full is made as it is now Thursday and not a "Synthetic Full Day".

Not good.

[rct]

I agree with Allen Kong that's why I had to choose another mode of backup.

[Vitaliy S.]

If the incremental job starts on a "Synthetic Full Day" but finishes on a day that is not a "Synthetic Full Day" then a synthetic full is not made.

This shouldn't be the case. Synthetic full tracks job start time and not the time when it finishes. Can you please tell me what version of Veeam B&R are you at?

[rct]

Version 6.5 here

[Vitaliy S.]

In this case can you please open the support case and post it in this thread as a reference?

[rct]

I don't use synthetic anymore and I don't have time to spent for this theses days. Sorry.
Just wanted to say I had seen the same behaviour.

[janr]

Hello Everyone,

When I schedule a backup on Sunday, the backup runs every week like it's supposed to.
However, it runs both on Saturday & Sunday. When I schedule a backup on Saturday it only runs once a week.



Does anyone know if this is a bug, hidden feature, misconfiguration or something else?

Regards

janr

[foggy]

Please check whether you have synthetic full scheduled for Saturday (at the Storage step of the wizard, Advanced tab). Full backup is performed irrespective of the job main schedule.

[John J]

Hi all,



I have just created several new back up jobs scheduled to run weekly and monthly.
The weekly tasks are scheduled to run every sunday.
The monthly tasks are scheduled to run every first sunday of the month

However, both weekly and monthly tasks run weekly on saturday instead of the days I scheduled it at.

When I create a new back-up job and I schedule it to start weekly on mondays, or monthly in July or December for example, the next run will be the next saturday (In this case 03/22/2014). The scheduled time however is correct. (i.e. 4:00 AM or 7:00 PM)


I had this problem in 7.0.0.715, and still have this problem in 7.0.0.839.


Who can help me out with this issue?

Thank you in advance,

John

[foggy]

John, this is not a problem at all, but rather peculiarity of the full backup scheduling, please see the thread above for explanation.

[John J]

Hi foggy,

I will give it a read. Thank you.

[DiabInc]

Today I noticed that backup jobs scheduled to run on Monday through Friday was running on Saturday also.
Will check if it is running tomorrow (Sunday) also.

Version 7.0.0.389

[foggy]

Mats, please check synthetic full scheduling for this job. By default, it is scheduled for Saturday and is performed irrespective of the main job schedule. Thanks.

[b.vanhaastrecht]

Hi,

I cant seem to get a clear anwser on this. The help dos not mention a setup when synthetic full is enbled together with active full:

With a Forward Incremental Job and synthetic full creating is enabled on every saterday. Does the Active Full option set once a month on (the same) saterday supersedes the synthetic full creation? Do we get one or two .vbk files when the Job runs on this particular saterday?

Regards,
Bastiaan