Scheduled Backup Jobs for Files with Dynamic Filenames

[CareUK]

Hi,

I've had a search around and I can't seems to find out whether there is a solution for this:

We use Veeam to back up our VM guests and every night an incremental backup is created to our NAS, which includes a full backup performed on Friday nights which finish on the Saturday mornings. On the Sunday, we back up the Friday night's Veeam backup on our NAS to a tape drive using Backup Exec.

So...

1. Veeam performs a full back up of all our VM guests on Friday night and finishes on the Saturday morning.

2. It outputs to a share our NAS with the filename, e.g. "vSphere2011-04-22T230054.vbk", where "vSphere" is the name of the Veeam job and "2011-04-22T230054" is the date and time.

3. From there, Backup Exec backs up that file to the locally attached tape drive. But because the filename is different every week, I cannot create a scheduled job on Backup Exec, because it requires me to select the filename to back up when creating the job. I don't want to have to create a backup job every week manually.

4. Now I understand that I can specify the whole folder, but I don't want that because it will then back up the last two weeks of backups onto the tape. We only want the last night's backup on the tape.

5. One idea is to basically, somehow tell Backup Exec to only backup the last file created in the directory.

Does anyone know how/if this can be done? Or are there any other ideas? Sorry, I'm obvously not a BUE expert.

Thanks. :)

[Ken_Putnam]

You should be able to specify the folder and a job type of Incremental, which would only backup files that have not already been backed up (if for whatever reason it does not run one night, it will backup the last two fifles the next)

[Kiran_Bandi]

5. One idea is to basically, somehow tell Backup Exec to only backup the last file created in the directory.

How about configuring one full and all incrementals after that?

Regards...

[CareUK]

I understand what you both are saying, but I'm not sure if you've understood exactly what I've wrote.

Veeam back ups are:

Fri (Full), Mon (Inc), Tue (Inc), Wed (Inc), Thu (Inc), Fri (Full), Mon (Inc) etc.

All these files are in one shared directory on the NAS, all in the same folder and we keep two weeks of Veeam backups. All created by Veeam, not Backup Exec. All filenames are dynamic and they are never the same because the filename has the date and time.

I want Backup Exec to only backup the Friday (Full) every (e.g.) Sunday. I want the job to be scheduled to automatically run.

I'm not sure how any of your solutions will work for this. If I do incrementals using BUE, it would back up a whole weeks worth (one full and four incrementals) of Veeam backups. I don't want that.

So remember: Veeam backs up our virtual machines and Backup Exec backs up our Veeam backups.

Get it? Or am I not understanding you properly?

Sorry, thanks.

[Ken_Putnam]

Sorry, mis understood your concern

If you want to ignore all but the Friday backup, I think the only way would be to script up creating the selection list (outside of BE) and then run a BEMCMD job to call that selection list using Task Scheduler

[tech29]

Hi There,

One thing which you can do is, give a seperate name for your friday full backup. Lets say the name given is Friday full XXXXXXX. vbk . store these files in a folder now while creating the backup you may try using the include/exclude feature in backup exec and tell Backup exec to backup only those files whose name starts with Friday full... this will backup only the Friday full files. now you want to backup only the latest friday full . vbk file so you may select the backup type as incremental which will eventually backup the latest friday full. vbk file.

I have not tried this. however, you may give it a shot.

Regards,

tech29

[CareUK]

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately I can't do that. I can only give one name for the whole Veeam backup job. The only way to have a seperate name for Friday is if I create a Friday backup seperately from the other four days of incrementals and if I did that, that would mean that one of the four incremental days would have to have a full backup. That'll take too much space.

Surely there must be a way!!! I can't possibly be the only person with this problem!

[tech29]

Hi Again,

Do the .vbk files generated get accessed regulary? If not, you may try this.

You may use the option "files not access in" under include/exclude option.

You may tell backup exec to exclude all the files which have not been accessed in last 1 day. so that when the backup starts on saturday, it will exclude all the files which have not been accessed in last 1 day(these files will be the incremental .vbk files and the old full.vbk files) and it will pickup only the full backup .vbk file which has been accessed in last one day. I tested few include/exclude options at my end and they are working as they are supposed to work.

Please find the screenshot of the same.

Regards,

tech29.

[Colin_Weaver]

Can't you use the working set backup with last accessed in x days specified

So your selection list would be the folder, and assuming your tape backups backup runs in the  middle of Sunday and your Full from Veem to the folder ran Friday evening then you would set x to 2.

[CareUK]

I can't believe it. Both my workmate and I looked at this option and thought is was only available for files accesses before the number of days. I only just discovered the "exclude" and "include" options. I feel so stupid! I'll try this on Sunday and see how I go!

Thanks!

[tech29]

Hi There,

Any update on this?  Did it work?

Regards,

tech29