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BE 2012 Synthetic Backup template, fulls weekly and synthetic monthly (backwards)?

TheTallOne
Level 2

In BE 2010 R3 the template for Synthetic backups have the Real Full monthly, Incremental daily and the Synthetic Full weekly.  I noticed in BE 2012 the Real Full and the Synthetic Full are backwards on this schedule (real weekly, synthetic monthly).  I have searched the forums and I can't see anyone else talking about this, am I the only one that thinks this is not correct?

I thought the idea of Synthetic was to minimize the real full backups by having the synthetic fulls rolling the incrementals into virtual fulls on a more frequent schedule than the real full backups.

I am running SP1a of BE 2012.  This is not an upgrade, it is fresh install on W2k8R2 with a full SQL engine (not the Express).  ADBO and CASO is installed, and this is being done on the Central Admin server.

BE 2012 backup schedule right after selecting Create a Synthetic backup:

Should I be adjusting the schedules of the Full and Synthetic Full?  If I do I fear the unseen template rules (seen in 2010 as "if start times conflict ...") will also be backwards (I miss 2010, I hate being treated like a Mac user, but I need the functional improvements of 2012).

Maybe the names (and icons) of the Methods are wrong and steps are in fact correct?

To add to the mystery:  When I select Add Stage to Duplicate the data from B2D to Tape, I can only select the Full or Incremental (not the Synthetic Full) backups if I use the "Run immediately after the previous task completes" schedule.  If I use the "According to schedule" option then I can select the Synthetic.  The same is true if I select the Dup to Disk stage.  I should be able to select any of the three methods on the "Run immediately" option, no?

The mystery deepens:  When I do adjust the schedule to be like 2010 (real full monthly, synthetic full weekly) and I look at the Calendar, I see the Synthetic Full backup scheduled for EVERY day, not only on the Weekly Sunday I told it to do.  Plus I see the Synthetic scheduled 3 times on the monthly date, twice on the weekly date.  Argh.  At least the Incremental was superseded.

From what I see I conclude:  The template of the Synthetic Backup is in fact backwards (a bug).  The Synthetic running every day may be a bug, an anomaly or by design, I will see what happens.  If it is by design then maybe it is needed to process the Full and Incrementals, thus why its on every day, twice weekly (once for the Incremental and second for the scheduled weekly Synthetic) and three times monthly (to process the monthly real Full).  BTW, the Synthetic Full claims its next Start Time to be the next Sunday, not tomorrow like the Calendar shows.  Hmmm.

 

Thanks for your input.

 

4 REPLIES 4

sagarsonker
Level 3
Employee

 

Hi,

Yes, it would be appropriate to adjust schedules, so that, for example, the synthetic backup runs weekly, and the full backup runs once a month. We would recommend that the schedules be configured so that the start times won't conflict.

Thanks, for describing the other issues in detail, will follow up on those at our end.

sagarsonker
Level 3
Employee

Would you please elaborate a bit more on your "Add Stage to Duplicate" observation? Is it with reference to BE 2012 or BE 2010? More details would help.

TheTallOne
Level 2

As you will notice in the title, and in the body of the post ("I am running SP1a of BE 2012"), I am dealing with BE 2012.  I only mention 2010 to refer to how it was in that version ("seen in 2010", "to be like 2010").

Let me know if you need screen shots to show the issue.  I think if you try to build a Synthetic backup and add the Duplicate to Tape stage you will see what I see.

Eric_Pouliot
Level 4

What kind of server do you backup?

Because I opened a ticket for problems with Linux and Macintosh, I was using the synthetic backup and that was the problem.  The incremental was doing a full after 2 days for some tasks with a lot of data.
Now I backup the same servers with just "backup to disk", full and incremental and everything work good.

The guy from Symantec was thinking that maybe the synthetic backup was not compatible with RAMS/RALUS agents, but I didn't have any follow up about this.