VEEAM - Backup Patterns

[CHiLL]

Hello, I would like some advice on how I can achieve my end goal.

 

Our backups are configured as follows:

Each server has it's own backup job, which runs each night using the reverse incremental method. The backups are scheduled to run one after another and each job has a secondary location configured for redundancy. The retention policy is set at 30 days.

 

I would like to increase this retention policy, so that I can create backups for each server, each month (1st of each month for example).

I would also like to ensure that we have an end of year backup running at the end of the academic year (July 31st for example).

I would prefer the above backups to be performed as full backups, creating no chain or other incremental backups. The reason is so that it is easier to archive them off to external media for storage.

 

I've had a look at Active Full and synthetic backups, but I'm not sure if they'll meet my requirements. If they can, I don't know how to configure them to do so.

 

How do I achieve this in VEEAM? Or is there a better way than what I've described?

[Steve21]

Just use BackUp copies

 

They take the most recent backups (whether chain or not) and merge it into 1 full backup at the set times. These are totally alone backups so don't rely on others. Which will get overwritten once 4 (my choice) are reached, but then it archives off them.

 

So for argument sake I got these set, it runs once a week. With 4 copies.

 

It then auto archives the last 12 months, and 4 years (giving total of 5 years archive).

 

So it ends up with -

4 Weekly

12 Monthly

4 Yearly

(All Fulls)

 

If that makes sense?

 

Steve

[CHiLL]

Just use BackUp copies

 

They take the most recent backups (whether chain or not) and merge it into 1 full backup at the set times. These are totally alone backups so don't rely on others. Which will get overwritten once 4 (my choice) are reached, but then it archives off them.

 

So for argument sake I got these set, it runs once a week. With 4 copies.

 

It then auto archives the last 12 months, and 4 years (giving total of 5 years archive).

 

So it ends up with -

4 Weekly

12 Monthly

4 Yearly

(All Fulls)

 

If that makes sense?

 

Steve

When I attempt to create a Backup Copy job, in the 'Job' section, I only seem to get an option for copy every ? day/hour/minute. I can't find anywhere else to set time periods. How can I schedule the backup copy for much larger time periods, so that it is triggered automatically?

[Steve21]

That's for the "task" to run as such.

 

On the target page, tick the "Keep for Archive Purposes" box and more options appear that allow weekly/monthly archives etc

 

Steve

[Steve21]

See below

 

 

Steve

[CHiLL]

See below

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]37504[/ATTACH]

 

Steve

That is excellent!

Those restore points, are they individual full backups that are independent?

[Steve21]

Yep. Once the "Archive" has be done from the original Copy they're standalone. (You can choose whether your copies as made via Incrementals or Fulls, but once it's archived it's standalone)

 

So again using my example, I have 4 restore points (incrementals) that run once a week. Once 4 are hit it starts archiving off old ones.

 

So I end up with 4 incremental + 1 weekly full...

Then 4 incremental + 2 weekly fulls

....

4 incremental + 1 monthly full

4 incremental + 1 monthly full + 1 weekly full

....

4 incremental + 6 monthly full + 2 weekly full etc etc

 

And so on

 

If that makes sense?

 

Steve

[Steve21]

This is just a test one I was playing with so not many to show but as an example:

 

 

Red = Latest Backup

Green = 3 incremental + Red = 4 points specified

Yellow = Monthly Fulls (_M)

 

Steve