How to Move Backups to an Incremental-with-Full-Backups Repository

Product version: 8.0

Last modified: 9 October 2018

Question

How can I move my backups from a forever-incremental Backup Repository to an incremental-with-full-backups repository?

Answer

Before moving your backups to an incremental-with-full-backups repository, make sure the following is met:

1. Your backup job has successfully backed up your VMs to your forever-incremental Backup Repository.

2. Your incremental-with-full-backups repository is available in NAKIVO Backup & Replication and has enough free space for backups copied from your forever-incremental Backup Repository. Refer to Creating Backup Repositories for how to create an incremental-with-full-backups repository.

First, copy the backups located in the forever-incremental Backup Repository to the incremental-with-full-backups repository. To do that, follow the steps below:

1. Open the New Backup Copy Jobwizard. Refer to Creating Backup Copy Jobs for details.

2. On the Backups page of the wizard, switch to the Backup Repositories view.

3. Select the source forever-incremental backup repository and click Next.

4. On the Destination page of the wizard, choose your incremental-with-full-backups repository as a destination and click Next.

5. On the Schedule page of the wizard, select Do not schedule, run on demand. With this option selected, the backup copy job is not scheduled and runs ad hoc. Click Next.

6. On the Retention page of the wizard, keep the default retention policy unless you want to exclude some of the older recovery points.

7. On the final page of the New Backup Copy Job wizard, click Save & Run.

8. Wait until the backup copy job has completed.

Second, delete your backup copy job. Otherwise, you will not be able to edit your backup job. Proceed as follows:

1. Right-click the backup copy job and choose Delete from the context menu.

2. In the dialog box that opens, choose Delete job and keep backups and click the Delete button.

Third, modify your backup job to map all your VMs to the backups created with the backup copy job in the incremental-with-full-backups repository. Proceed as follows:

1. Right-click the job and choose Edit from the context menu.

2. The Edit Backup Job wizard opens. Go to the Destination page and in the Backup repository drop-down list choose your incremental-with-full-backups repository.

3. In the dialog box that opens, do the following:

   1. Choose one of the following options:

      • Change backup repository and keep old backup. Choose this option to keep copies of your backups in the forever-incremental repository.

      • Change backup repository and delete old backup. Choose this option to delete your backups from the forever-incremental repository.

   2. Click Change.

4. Below the Backup repository drop-down list, click Advanced options.

5. The list of VMs opens. Click each VM to expand it.

6. In the VM property area, select Use existing backup as a target and specify a target backup available in the incremental-with-full-backups repository.

7. Click Save & Run.

8. In the dialog box that opens, specify the backup job options:

   1. Backup type. Choose one of the following:

      • Incremental

      • Full

   2. If you choose Full as the backup type, choose one of the following options:

      • Synthetic Full. With this option selected, NAKIVO Backup & Replication first performs an incremental backup (that is, only the data that has changed since the last backup is transferred) and then transforms the available data into a full backup file.

      • Active Full. With this option selected, NAKIVO Backup & Replication reads all VM data from the source datastore and transfers it to the Backup Repository.

   3. Specify the job run scope:

      • Run for all VMs

      • Run for selected VMs

      • Run for failed VMs

   4. Click Run.

The Edit Backup Job wizard closes and your backup job starts running. Wait until your VMs are backed up.

Note
The first run of the backup job after editing may take a long time.