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How to do a custom backup similar to always incremental but incorporate also differential backups

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I have to backup some servers that have to be replicated to a remote site using a slow wan line.

At first though I would go with the always incremental scheme. However this would not be a good solution due to the large retension policy (62 days).

Is there a way to do a custom backup plan that will perform a full backup once and then differential every friday and incremental the other days and also consolidate older than 62 days incremental to the full to roll it forward?

 

PS: My thought was to do the following custom plan:

full: 29th of february (Theoretically it will be performed every 4 years)

inremental: tue-thu

differential: friday

Retrension Rules:  Cleanup Backups older than 62 days.

if a backup to be moved or deleted has dependencies: Consolidate

I do not know what will exactly happen when the full backup gets older than 62 days.

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Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi Eugene,

In your plan the backups older than 62 days will be consolidated which means the following:

On 62nd day there will be (no consolidation ran yet): Full(day1) + Inc1(day2) + Inc2(day3)+ Inc3(day4) + Inc4(day5) + Diff1(day6) + ....

On 63rd day the Full will be consolidated into Inc1 backup, so in total there will be: Full'(day2) + Inc2(day3) + Inc3(day4) + Inc4(day5) + Diff1(day6) + ....

In other words this scheme should do exactly what you need if I correctly understood your requirements.

P.S. You can test it by setting consolidation to clean up backups when their number exceeds 2, i.e. use "by number of backups" cleanup rule and run the backup task 3 times, then check the timestamps of the backups in corresponding vault view from Acronis Backup console.

Thank you.

--

Best regards,

Vasily

Acronis Virtualization Program Manager

Hi Vasily,

Indeed I tested it and it works as I wanted to.

Can you also confirm that the consolidation on a centrallized managed vault will be done from the storage node?

I want to be sure that just the incrementals are sent over a slow wan line and the storage node on the remote side will execute the consolidation to offload the line.

I also gues that if you do the same on an unmanaged vault the full backup will have to be transferred back to the original site, consolidate and then send back to the remote site.

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi Eugene,

The consolidation process is triggered by the backup agent, but performed on the Acronis Storage Node side in case backups are saved to managed centralized vault. In case of unmanaged vault the consolidation will be performed by the backup agent itself, so it will access the archive over network and cause additional traffic.

Thank you.

--

Best regards,

Vasily

Acronis Virtualization Program Manager