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Yes, Veeam can! (sorry for this pun)

Question arose today and I thought this is could be interesting to share: Is it possible to copy a backup copy job? So can a backup copy job use a backup copy job as source job? Yes and no. It is not possible to select the copy backup job directly. But it is possible to select the repository, the (second) copy job searches for backup data.

 

How to create a copy copy job:

Start the New Backup Copy Job wizard and enter a name. Here it is required to use Periodic copy (pruning) Copy mode! Note: Source copy backup job can also use Immediate copy (mirroring) mode.

 

On next step, press Add… → From backups... 
 

and select the job you want to copy second time.

It is important to do so, otherwise, selected source repository (next step) will be ignored!

Press Source… and select the repository, the first copy job uses as target. This is the repository this copy job will read backups from.

 

The rest of the wizard can be configured as desired. 

In joblog you see the source repository, copy is made from:

 

ohhhh… excellent :thumbsup: sure this content will be in the recap ...

 

VEEAM needs some tricks for some functions… :smiley::smiley::smiley:

Thanks for this, it’ll help me for sure

Great post, I’ve seen this question in the R&D forums quite a few times. Thank you for sharing.

Nice post!

Do you recommend this feature for hot and cool backup in two distinct repositories?

Nice post!

Do you recommend this feature for hot and cool backup in two distinct repositories?

Most often, I use backup copy jobs to copy backups from one site to another and vice versa. Then I use the original backup files as source. But for a copy to a third location, this is a great way to not block primary backup files during copy - often through slower uplinks.

What’s the concern of restore VM when I need to restore from copy copy repository to vSphere 

There are no concerns. They are still backups where you can restore as normal.

Just as a note, V12 won‘t allow doing backup copies from a backup copy job because of the copy job changes.

We will bring the feature back, but we don‘t have an ETA.

 

Thanks,

Fabian

Nice trick , thank for the share :)

There are no concerns. They are still backups where you can restore as normal.

Just as a note, V12 won‘t allow doing backup copies from a backup copy job because of the copy job changes.

We will bring the feature back, but we don‘t have an ETA.

 

Thanks,

Fabian

Did I get you right, this feature is not available in V12 GA? What will happen when a VBR with such settings is upgraded? 

@vNote42 Yes. It will not be available for new backup copy jobs in V12 GA.

Backup copy jobs from V10/V11 should keep working in V12. But newly created V12 image backup copy jobs won’t be able to use backup copies as a source.

 

Thanks,

Fabian

@vNote42 Yes. It will not be available for new backup copy jobs in V12 GA.

Backup copy jobs from V10/V11 should keep working in V12. But newly created V12 image backup copy jobs won’t be able to use backup copies as a source.

 

Thanks,

Fabian

Thank you!

There are no concerns. They are still backups where you can restore as normal.

Just as a note, V12 won‘t allow doing backup copies from a backup copy job because of the copy job changes.

We will bring the feature back, but we don‘t have an ETA.

 

Thanks,

Fabian

Thanks for the heads up on this. Great to know!

@vNote42 Yes. It will not be available for new backup copy jobs in V12 GA.

Backup copy jobs from V10/V11 should keep working in V12. But newly created V12 image backup copy jobs won’t be able to use backup copies as a source.

 

Thanks,

Fabian

Thx @Mildur for clarifying this. I know that I have used this for 1 customer as follows, so it’s very important not to delete the existing copy-job.

If some settings are changed in the existing copy-job, will that change the behaviour also when upgrading to version 12?

  • hypervisors and backup-server are located in a datacenter
  • so backup-jobs are running at the datacenter to the primary repository at the datacenter
  • an immediate copy job is being used to copy the backups to the HQ of the customer over a VPN-connection to the secondary repository
  • a periodic copy job is being used to copy the backups on the secondary repository (setup in the sources as described by @vNote42  to rotated USB disks to have a offline copy)

So, that will be a problem when the customer upgrades to version 12?

 

So better is waiting when Veeam implements that feature I presume?

 

thx

 

 

@Nico Losschaert 

After the upgrade to V12 you can edit this legacy jobs (pre-V12) and add new VMs to process. They behave the same as in a V11 environment and are fully manageable. 

We will reintroduce the copy from copy option to the new V12 backup copy jobs in a future update.

 

If you have a new deployment where you need such copy jobs, maybe you can start with V11a, configure all jobs as required and then do the upgrade to V12.

Thanks,

Fabian

@Nico Losschaert

After the upgrade to V12 you can edit this legacy jobs (pre-V12) and add new VMs to process. They behave the same as in a V11 environment and are fully manageable. 

We will reintroduce the copy from copy option to the new V12 backup copy jobs in a future update.

 

If you have a new deployment where you need such copy jobs, maybe you can start with V11a, configure all jobs as required and then do the upgrade to V12.

Thanks,

Fabian

Thx @Mildur for your perfect feedback!

@Mildur Any ideas on when it will be added again in V12? Shortly or will it take a while?

@Mildur Any ideas on when it will be added again in V12? Shortly or will it take a while?

Hi @wouter.oltlammers 

 

Not yet defined. I would appreciate it If you leave your voice in our RnD forum at the following topic:

https://forums.veeam.com/post478735.html#p478735

More voices with a shared use case will help us to prioritize the Feature request.

 

Best,

Fabian

Hi all

 

Copy from Copy is back starting with version 12.1.1.56. Thank you @HannesK for proving the information in our RnD forum.

RnD forum:

https://forums.veeam.com/post513249.html#p513249


Steps to do

  1. On the backup server: add the the BackupCopyEnableBackupCopyAsSource=1 (DWORD 32bit) registry key to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication"
  2. Restart the VBR console. After that, you see backup copy jobs as source in the "From jobs..." section


Image

Things you need to know
a. the source backup copy job must be in "Per-Machine with Separate Metadata Files" mode, aka "true per-VM chains mode"
b. legacy backup copy jobs must be upgraded before being available as source for "BCJ from BCJ"
c. the copy chain can be extended by one level (same as in V11). One cannot do "BCJ from BCJ from BCJ"
d. source repository (backup job or copy job) must be different than the target repository (to avoid a "circle of death")
e. BCJ from BCJ has lower priority (task slots & locking) than the "primary backup copy job"
f. "mapping" as upgrade method does not work
g. existing BCJ from BCJ continue working after upgrade from V11 to any V12 version. That means you can migrate "step by step"

unsupported for now

  • VCC as source
  • VCC as target
  • Repository with rotated drives as source
  • Repository with rotated drives as target
  • Agent copy jobs as source
  • Legacy jobs as source
  • Exclusions
  • Adding backup copy job to BCJ from BCJ in the "secondary destination" wizard step
  • Log backups processing is not supported when Backup Copy job is used as a source

future

- we plan to have that option directly available in 12.1.2 so that the reg key is not needed anymore by then

Best,

Fabian

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