Backup with VEEAM nutanix

Hi ​@himanshusince1989,

Which version of VBR are use using and which version of the AHV plugin (Veeam)?

There have been some major changes during the past versions that’s why I’m asking.

As Marco said you basically should be able to select the method as in the article but maybe you are using an old version.

Best

Lukas

I am using VBR : VeeamBackup&Replication_12.3.2.3617, from where to check the plugin for AHV?

The default is forever forward incremental and then you select to run a full as shown in the screenshot on a schedule.

Okay, does synthetic means forever forward incremental. So I can assume that Synthetic as Incremental and Active Full Backup as Full Backup

Yes synthetic creates a full backup but an active full starts a new chain again.

“Okay, does synthetic means forever forward incremental. So I can assume that Synthetic as Incremental and Active Full Backup as Full Backup” ← ​@himanshusince1989 ...no, taking occasional Fulls, whether Synthetic or Active, is what’s referred to as a “Forward Incremental”; Forever Fwd Incremental means a Full is taken at first job run, then nothing but Incrementals are created every job run after. Once the configured retention is met, that first Full is “merged” with the Incremental right next to it and it “moves forward” a day. The full chain in this method is always ‘active’. No restore point can be removed or restore will not be possible. This process continues each day.

Forward Incremental has both active and inactive chains, whether you use Synthetic (Fulls are created by restore points already on the Repository) or Active (Fulls are created by pulling the source VM data to the Repo). How? In Fwd Increm, you create occasional Fulls as I shared previously. After this Full, a new active chain is created and Incrementals are created until the configured occasional Full is again created. This does not remove the previous chain though because the current chain hasn’t yet met the configured retention, and you would still need all those previous chain restore points to perform a restore which meets your retention. This behavior (Fwd Increm method) causes more space to be needed on Repositories. But, is really the recommended backup method to use.

Hope that helps.

So to create below,

I will have to keep 2 Jobs.

Can you please share me the schule how it can be for below

o    Create weekly full backup
o    Create daily incremental
o    Set the schedule for the backups at 10 AM every every morning to run daily incremental, weekly full at Friday 10 AM Morning.
o    Set retention date to 2 weeks for weekly full, 2 weeks for daily incrementials and 1 week for deduplication.

You will want to schedule normal backups but enable GFS for your weekly.  You can also set the retention for this as well.  There is no weekly for deduplication that I am aware of.  See this link for GFS details and schedule the job for whatever you need.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/gfs_retention_policy.html?ver=120

What is the difference between, selecting the day here and in schedule, are they mean the same? I am really confused to take incremental data 🙄
 

​@himanshusince1989 -

You would create your NTX Backup Job in Veeam following the NTX-Veeam User Guide, setting your Retention (screenshot below) to 14 (not 7 as shown):

Ref: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbahv/userguide/backup_job_vbr_destination.html?ver=7

Though you can certainly configure GFS to keep 2 weekly Fulls as Chris suggests, I’m not sure you need to since your Job Retention is set to 2wks. You can probably just configure your Fulls (Synthetic or Active...whichever you prefer) to run each Fri, and since your Job will run at 10a, your Fulls would get created every wk at 10a as well. You can’t set a time when to run Fulls separately in GFS, although they would get created around the same time (10a) as the Job is scheduled for the given wk.

Ref URL: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbahv/userguide/backup_job_vbr_advanced.html?ver=7

What I would do is create a simple Job with 1 VM, configured as follows:

• At the Backup Destination screen, configure Retention to 14. The first Job run will be an Active Full & subsequent Job runs will be Incremental automatically.
• At the Backup Destination screen, click the Advanced button and on the General tab configure your Full (select Synthetic or Active) and choose Friday. It will get created each Fri at 10a. Subsequent Job runs will create Incrementals automatically.
• Still in the Advanced section, on the Storage Tab, select Inline Deduplication. There is no “schedule” for this though
• At the Schedule window, schedule your Job to run at 10am daily

I think that would take care of your requirements. Again, test this out creating a ‘test Job’ with 1 VM. Configure as shown and see if it has Retention like you want. Let us know.

Best.

​@himanshusince1989 -

You would create your NTX Backup Job in Veeam following the NTX-Veeam User Guide, setting your Retention (screenshot below) to 14 (not 7 as shown):

Ref: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbahv/userguide/backup_job_vbr_destination.html?ver=7

Though you can certainly configure GFS to keep 2 weekly Fulls, I’m not sure you need to since your Job Retention is set to 2wks. You can probably just configure your Fulls (Synthetic or Active...whichever you prefer) to run each Fri, and since your Job will run at 10a, your Fulls would get created every wk at 10a as well. You can set a time to run Fulls separately in GFS. 

Ref URL: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbahv/userguide/backup_job_vbr_advanced.html?ver=7

What I would do is create a simple Job with 1 VM, configured as follows:

• At the Backup Destination screen, configure Retention to 14. The first Job run will be an Active Full & subsequent Job runs will be Incremental automatically.
• At the Backup Destination screen, click the Advanced button and on the General tab configure your Full (select Synthetic or Active) and choose Friday. It will get created each Fri at 10a. Subsequent Job runs will create Incrementals automatically.
• Still in the Advanced section, on the Storage Tab, select Inline Deduplication. There is no “schedule” for this though
• At the Schedule window, schedule your Job to run at 10am daily

I think that would take care of your requirements. Again, test this out creating a ‘test Job’ with 1 VM. Configure as shown and see if it has Retention like you want. Let us know.

Best.

Thank you so much for the detailed one. I got it now, but my final query will be ,  how it will cover the incremental part, as we are doing full backup here?

As I shared in my post..Incrementals are done automatically. After the first run of the Job, which is a Full, and after the Full each Friday, each day’s backup is an Incremental taken by Veeam. There is no configuration needed...that’s how any backup solution works….backing up only the data changes since the last backup. Hope that helps.

Look at these 2 links..maybe they will help more:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_hiw.html?ver=120

More specifically..here for Fwd Incremental:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/retention_incremental.html?ver=120

And even better...here’s a KB animating the Fwd Increm backup method (bottom one):

https://www.veeam.com/kb1932

Hope these help.

Great to hear this, this means I dont need to define any rule for incremental. Can we modify any schedule for incremental

That is correct...there is no “schedule” specific to just Incrementals. No, not specifically...you can’ modify this somewhat. You can modify the whole Backup Job schedule, which kinda means you modify the Incremental retention. But no..there is no schedule solely for Incrementals. 

Thank you so much everyone for your suggestions and helping me out. Just last question, I initiated full backup now, so when incremental plan is triggered? 

“Thank you so much everyone for your suggestions and helping me out. Just last question, I initiated full backup now, so when incremental plan is triggered?”  ← Incremental will run when the Job runs next, and an Incremental will be taken each day until Friday where you configured your periodic Full. Then, the next day after that Full, an Incremental will be created again.

The URLs I posted a few comments up explain this really well ​@himanshusince1989 

Glad we could help with the Nutanix backup issue.  If you have further questions please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask.  That is what we are here for. 😁

Also be sure to read Shane’s links too.  😉