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Clarification on changes to full backups in Platform Release 2024

  • 20 January 2024
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Hello!

In the latest platform release 2024 (11.34), the option to select “All agents” for a full backup was removed. The change note states “Full Schedules apply to database backups. For other agents, each backup job will back up only the new and modified items and create a full recovery image. Therefore, running repeated full backup is not required.” It links to the “Server plans” page of the documentation, but not much else is mentioned there except for step 5 in “Creating a plan” which states, “To specify additional backups, such as weekly full backups, move the Extended retention rules toggle key to the right, and then add rules.”

Does this mean that all server backup plans use synthetic backups by default if it is not a database? My use case is largely running application consistent backups for virtual machines. Currently our backup policies state the exact day and time that weekly/monthly/yearly full backups will run, which may need to change to keep compliant if we are not able to be this granular anymore.

Am I understanding the changes correctly? If not, would you mind helping me understand?

Thank you in advance!

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Best answer by Chris Hollis 24 January 2024, 02:38

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Chris Hollis
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@Virtuas Jake 

It’s my understanding that yes, this will be synthetics moving forward. It’s also only applicable to newly configured plans, not existing plans that have rules in-place. 

I would expect the ability to define FULL still in the JAVA console (this is only applicable to plans). 

Let me do some testing and get some official confirmation on this for you and the community. 

Will aim to get back within 24-48 hours.

Regards,

Chris 

Chris Hollis
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@Virtuas Jake 

Did some testing and verified that existing plans remain in-tact (FULLs remain scheduled) and new plans prevent ability to set ‘FULL’ backup type for the ‘all agents’ option. 

Existing plan:
 


New plan:
 


Synthetics are created as you can see above. 

So your existing configuration should still behave as you have designed / planned. 

I’m now looking for clarity as to why the change and what others need to do for your situation (if hypothetically you needed to create a new plan with Fulls on specific days).

Regards,

Chris

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@Chris Hollis 

Thank you for the reply! I did manage to find that existing plans remained in-tact. Thank you for looking into clarifying what we should do moving forward, that is greatly appreciated. 

I will leave this post open for now to give you some time on that, after which I’ll give you best answer if I do not hear back.

Thank you again!

Chris Hollis
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@Virtuas Jake 

So feedback I received is as follows:

Commvault has introduced new technology that essentially makes every incremental backup a “full recovery image”. 

We no longer need to run expensive full backups anymore for VSA or File system agents.

We are updating our documentation site with more context/details as to the change.

Additionally, as you have existing plans in place, you should be able to simply add new clients to it that suit your business requirements to run FULLs at certain days/times. 

For others who are setting up new plans/environments, they’ll have to use automatically scheduling with the synthetic full backup option (for ‘all agents’). 

Let me know if you need anything further here.


Regards,​​​​​​​

Chris

 

 

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