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Retention Policy - Backup Copy Job with GFS

NemanjaJanicic
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Hello everybody,

I would like to know scenario with retention policy in this way.
 

I don’t want to have Forever Forward Incremental backup method because as I saw it’s not recommended by Veeam also, if we do it without GFS.

I would like to create Full backups (synthetic) every week.
So I’m just a little bit confused how restore points will be available.
If I have configured 7 restore points but in GFS I have option to store Full Backups for 2 weeks, how it will end up looking?
I’m more curios how increments are going to be removed.

 

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Best answer by coolsport00 30 November 2023, 11:26

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21 comments

marcofabbri
Userlevel 7
Badge +13

Hi @NemanjaJanicic 

To set Synthetic full, you need to click on Advanced and set it there:
 

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/hyperv/synthetic_full_backup.html?ver=120

 

In your case, let’s say it start on Friday, you’ll gonna have, after 14 days:

2 full

6 incrementals.

Those 2 fulls are set as GFS. :)

 

Here for more info about GFS:

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

Backups are like pizza, I love them. | Linkedin: @marco-fabbri-it
T
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi @NemanjaJanicic,
here is some basic information on forward incremental and GFS: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/forward_incremental_backup.html?ver=120 
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_copy_gfs_chain.html?ver=120 
GFS Flag Assignment:https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/gfs_how_flags_assigned.html?ver=120 

With Forward Incremental, backups that are "outside" the retention are always deleted as a whole chain. https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/retention_incremental.html?ver=120 

In your case (setting 7 Restore Points + 2x GFS Weekly ) it would mean that between 8 and 13 Restore Points are available. Two of the restore points are full backups (2x GFS Weekly), but these are also "part of your retention setting" and also receive the GFS flag. 

You can use the following tool to visualise Forward Incremental Backup: https://rps.dewin.me/ 
Although it is EOL, I personally find it quite good for illustration purposes.

Best regards, Thomas

NemanjaJanicic
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Hi @NemanjaJanicic,
here is some basic information on forward incremental and GFS: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/forward_incremental_backup.html?ver=120 
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_copy_gfs_chain.html?ver=120 
GFS Flag Assignment:https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/gfs_how_flags_assigned.html?ver=120 

With Forward Incremental, backups that are "outside" the retention are always deleted as a whole chain. https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/retention_incremental.html?ver=120 

In your case (setting 7 Restore Points + 2x GFS Weekly ) it would mean that between 8 and 13 Restore Points are available. Two of the restore points are full backups (2x GFS Weekly), but these are also "part of your retention setting" and also receive the GFS flag. 

You can use the following tool to visualise Forward Incremental Backup: https://rps.dewin.me/ 
Although it is EOL, I personally find it quite good for illustration purposes.

Best regards, Thomas

Hi @Thomson ,

It’s a little bit confusing but I guess the best option is to configure it and then see how it will going to perform.
Then I can play a little bit with retention policy etc

coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

The info provided for Fwd Increm I believe is inaccurate. They provided what to do for Backup Jobs, not Backup Copy. Is that what you were wanting @NemanjaJanicic ? You can't create Fwd Increm with BCJs. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
marcofabbri
Userlevel 7
Badge +13

@NemanjaJanicic this is perfect to undersand how it works:
 

 

On 13:20 he talks about Synthetic full :)

Backups are like pizza, I love them. | Linkedin: @marco-fabbri-it
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Again, that is for Backup Jobs, not BCJs. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
NemanjaJanicic
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

The info provided for Fwd Increm I believe is inaccurate. They provided what to do for Backup Jobs, not Backup Copy. Is that what you were wanting @NemanjaJanicic ? You can't create Fwd Increm with BCJs. 

I would like to have at least 2 Full Backups via Backup Copy Job on our Secondary Location.
So to have something like this:
1. Synthetic Full - Friday
2. Increment - Mon
3. Increment - Tue
4. Increment - Wed
5. Increment - Thu
6. Synthetic Full - Friday 
7. Increment - Mon
8. Increment - Tue
9. Increment - Wed
10. Increment - Thu
11. Synthetic Full - Friday

And now when the third Synthetic Full is createad I would like for first cycle from 1-5 to be deleted.
Is this too much for Backup Copy Job or? Its really complicated.
Backup Jobs are far more easy..

marcofabbri
Userlevel 7
Badge +13

Again, that is for Backup Jobs, not BCJs. 

Oh, you’re right. I was talking about Backup Jobs.

Backups are like pizza, I love them. | Linkedin: @marco-fabbri-it
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

You can't create synthetic or active fulls for BCJs. Those jobs are only in the Forever Fwd method. You can only create additional GFS Fulls with it. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
T
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

oh sorry, I overlooked that this is about Backu Copy Job. My answer refers to a normal backup job.

@coolsport00 is right!

 

“Since Veeam Backup & Replication creates forever forward incremental backup chains while backup copy jobs run, Veeam Backup & Replication applies the forever forward incremental retention policy to remove restore points and maintain the desired number of restore points.”

NemanjaJanicic
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

You can't create synthetic or active fulls for BCJs. Those jobs are only in the Forever Fwd method. You can only create additional GFS Fulls with it. 

That is what I’m trying to achieve, with GFS enabled also.

marcofabbri
Userlevel 7
Badge +13

You can't create synthetic or active fulls for BCJs. Those jobs are only in the Forever Fwd method. You can only create additional GFS Fulls with it. 

This. ⬆

Backups are like pizza, I love them. | Linkedin: @marco-fabbri-it
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

@NemanjaJanicic - you can't do this. You're confusing how BCJs work. These jobs are not backups. They don't backup the VMs. BCJs copy Backup files. They're copies of the vbk/vib files which contain VMs. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

@Madi.Cristil - the marked answer in this post is inaccurate. Can you please undo it? I don't want members to be led astray on how BCJs work. Thank you 😊

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
NemanjaJanicic
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

@NemanjaJanicic - you can't do this. You're confusing how BCJs work. These jobs are not backups. They don't backup the VMs. BCJs copy Backup files. They're copies of the vbk/vib files which contain VMs. 

They are just transferring the files from Primary Storage to Secondary Storage.
It’s just confusing to me why they use Forward Incrementals, there is no sense to me.
If original Backup Storage is not configured in that way. 
It’s all confusing a little bit for me.
Then when I think about it its also possible just to create again normal backup jobs and send it via wan to Secondary Storage with same configurations like Primary Storage?

coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Yes, they are transferring the Backup job files, not making backups of VMs. And, they're in Forever Fwd not Fwd. The BCJs do this because it's a different process altogether. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

@NemanjaJanicic - you can't do this. You're confusing how BCJs work. These jobs are not backups. They don't backup the VMs. BCJs copy Backup files. They're copies of the vbk/vib files which contain VMs. 

They are just transferring the files from Primary Storage to Secondary Storage.
It’s just confusing to me why they use Forward Incrementals, there is no sense to me.
If original Backup Storage is not configured in that way. 
It’s all confusing a little bit for me.
Then when I think about it its also possible just to create again normal backup jobs and send it via wan to Secondary Storage with same configurations like Primary Storage?

Yes you could do another backup job to secondary storage using WAN accelerators which can have a similar retention policy instead of BCJ.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
NemanjaJanicic
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

@NemanjaJanicic - you can't do this. You're confusing how BCJs work. These jobs are not backups. They don't backup the VMs. BCJs copy Backup files. They're copies of the vbk/vib files which contain VMs. 

They are just transferring the files from Primary Storage to Secondary Storage.
It’s just confusing to me why they use Forward Incrementals, there is no sense to me.
If original Backup Storage is not configured in that way. 
It’s all confusing a little bit for me.
Then when I think about it its also possible just to create again normal backup jobs and send it via wan to Secondary Storage with same configurations like Primary Storage?

Yes you could do another backup job to secondary storage using WAN accelerators which can have a similar retention policy instead of BCJ.

Is there any benefits with using BCJ instead of BJ to off site location?
If its the same then why would I use BCJ over basic BJ to different location if I can also use WAN Accelerators for it.

Thank you for this answer.

Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

@NemanjaJanicic - you can't do this. You're confusing how BCJs work. These jobs are not backups. They don't backup the VMs. BCJs copy Backup files. They're copies of the vbk/vib files which contain VMs. 

They are just transferring the files from Primary Storage to Secondary Storage.
It’s just confusing to me why they use Forward Incrementals, there is no sense to me.
If original Backup Storage is not configured in that way. 
It’s all confusing a little bit for me.
Then when I think about it its also possible just to create again normal backup jobs and send it via wan to Secondary Storage with same configurations like Primary Storage?

Yes you could do another backup job to secondary storage using WAN accelerators which can have a similar retention policy instead of BCJ.

Is there any benefits with using BCJ instead of BJ to off site location?
If its the same then why would I use BCJ over basic BJ to different location if I can also use WAN Accelerators for it.

Thank you for this answer.

It is mainly the format of the backups as noted by others above. They both accomplish the same thing just in different ways to get the data to the secondary site.  It is preference mainly on how you want to set it up. If you have read the documentation for both options it is then how you want to do it.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
NemanjaJanicic
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

@NemanjaJanicic - you can't do this. You're confusing how BCJs work. These jobs are not backups. They don't backup the VMs. BCJs copy Backup files. They're copies of the vbk/vib files which contain VMs. 

They are just transferring the files from Primary Storage to Secondary Storage.
It’s just confusing to me why they use Forward Incrementals, there is no sense to me.
If original Backup Storage is not configured in that way. 
It’s all confusing a little bit for me.
Then when I think about it its also possible just to create again normal backup jobs and send it via wan to Secondary Storage with same configurations like Primary Storage?

Yes you could do another backup job to secondary storage using WAN accelerators which can have a similar retention policy instead of BCJ.

Is there any benefits with using BCJ instead of BJ to off site location?
If its the same then why would I use BCJ over basic BJ to different location if I can also use WAN Accelerators for it.

Thank you for this answer.

It is mainly the format of the backups as noted by others above. They both accomplish the same thing just in different ways to get the data to the secondary site.  It is preference mainly on how you want to set it up. If you have read the documentation for both options it is then how you want to do it.

Are Wan accelerators only possible for BCJ?

Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

@NemanjaJanicic - you can't do this. You're confusing how BCJs work. These jobs are not backups. They don't backup the VMs. BCJs copy Backup files. They're copies of the vbk/vib files which contain VMs. 

They are just transferring the files from Primary Storage to Secondary Storage.
It’s just confusing to me why they use Forward Incrementals, there is no sense to me.
If original Backup Storage is not configured in that way. 
It’s all confusing a little bit for me.
Then when I think about it its also possible just to create again normal backup jobs and send it via wan to Secondary Storage with same configurations like Primary Storage?

Yes you could do another backup job to secondary storage using WAN accelerators which can have a similar retention policy instead of BCJ.

Is there any benefits with using BCJ instead of BJ to off site location?
If its the same then why would I use BCJ over basic BJ to different location if I can also use WAN Accelerators for it.

Thank you for this answer.

It is mainly the format of the backups as noted by others above. They both accomplish the same thing just in different ways to get the data to the secondary site.  It is preference mainly on how you want to set it up. If you have read the documentation for both options it is then how you want to do it.

Are Wan accelerators only possible for BCJ?

Yes, they are.  If you do a second backup job, then you cannot.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech

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