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Issues with storage policy copy job selections

  • February 11, 2022
  • 3 replies
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Thank you all in advance for the input.  (first time poster)

I have an issue I can’t figure out and I’m tired of beating my head against the wall.  

We are moving away from using tapes as our secondary copy (archive copy).  We have recently setup Azure cloud storage policy copies for our archive.  I have attempted to mirror the policy copy settings between the tape and cloud copies as much as possible.  We have 3 copies - weekly, monthly, and yearly, each with a different retention, and 3 different storage policies.  

We started with the weekly copy and all seemed to be well.  When I created the monthly and yearly copies, the job selections didn’t meet my expectations.  A few examples:  

  • duplicate jobs would show up in the weekly and monthly, or monthly and yearly.  Meaning a job that I would expect to a monthly (first weekend of the month) was in the weekly job list.
  • The yearly jobs don’t seem correct at all.  We want the first weekend in Feb of every year to be our yearly copy.  However not only do these jobs show in the monthly job list, but they don’t show in the yearly, but jobs from Jan do.  I have setup a custom calendar that starts the year with Feb but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.   

I’m not sure what other information may be helpful, but I’ll provide as much as I can:

  • I’ve made sure ‘prevent multiple copies of job across selective copies’ is check for each SP.
  • I’ve edited the Associations on the old tape copy and removed all clients.  They only exist on the cloud copies.  
  • I’m using automatic selective copy settings.  In fact, changes that I make to the copy selections don’t seem to do anything - the list never really changes.  
  • I don’t have any schedules associated yet.  Figured I needed to get the job list right before running the jobs.  

Not sure what else to check.  I understand that CV is probably showing me the jobs that I asked for - but I don’t understand the selection logic behind the scenes.  Any help you can provide would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

 

DAN

 

Best answer by Mike Struening RETIRED

Welcome @94danstang !

I’ll start with an overview, then dive into the likely cause at the end.

Since these are Selective aux Copies (and I’m assuming you have each set to “Select Last backup of the time period for Weekly), etc), the jobs will be selected once the Aux Copy runs based on the remaining jobs in the Primary Copy.

As an example, if you set up the Yearly Aux Copy TODAY, and run it, the backups from January are potentially aged off already.  The Aux Copy will then see which backups it can collect for the time period and grab those, regardless of when they actually ran.

Think of Selective Aux Copies (and Extended Retention) as an inventory.  the operation looks at all of the fulls for each associated subclient, then sorts them by time period.  It then will apply the retention/Selection for copy based on which backups fall into which category.

You may be expecting to see some jobs from January in your Yearly Aux copy, but they might be gone already.

To add to the above general guidelines, you have the below optiuon enabled which will prevent jobs from being copied to multiple Selective copies.  Perhaps you expect to see a job go to the Yearly copy, but it is already on the monthly……

https://documentation.commvault.com/11.25/expert/13879_storage_policy_online_help.html

Prevent multiple copies of job across selective copies

This option is valid for time based selective copies.

Select this option to prevent the same set of backups to be copied across different selective copies.

For example:

The storage policy has the following configured:

  • 1 daily copy (first full)

  • 1 weekly copy (first full – week begins on Monday)

  • 1 monthly copy (first full – month begins on 1st)

Full backup Job1 runs on the first day of the month, which is Monday. This job qualifies for all the 3 configurations:

  • First full of the day

  • First full of the week

  • First full of the month

If Prevent multiple copies of job across selective copies option is selected, then the job will go to the Monthly copy only. If the option is cleared, this job will be copied to all the selective copies.

Note:

If there are multiple copies with the same selective copy rules, then the qualifying job goes to the copy which was created first and therefore has the lowest copy ID.

 

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    Mike Struening
    Vaulter
    Forum|alt.badge.img+23

    Welcome @94danstang !

    I’ll start with an overview, then dive into the likely cause at the end.

    Since these are Selective aux Copies (and I’m assuming you have each set to “Select Last backup of the time period for Weekly), etc), the jobs will be selected once the Aux Copy runs based on the remaining jobs in the Primary Copy.

    As an example, if you set up the Yearly Aux Copy TODAY, and run it, the backups from January are potentially aged off already.  The Aux Copy will then see which backups it can collect for the time period and grab those, regardless of when they actually ran.

    Think of Selective Aux Copies (and Extended Retention) as an inventory.  the operation looks at all of the fulls for each associated subclient, then sorts them by time period.  It then will apply the retention/Selection for copy based on which backups fall into which category.

    You may be expecting to see some jobs from January in your Yearly Aux copy, but they might be gone already.

    To add to the above general guidelines, you have the below optiuon enabled which will prevent jobs from being copied to multiple Selective copies.  Perhaps you expect to see a job go to the Yearly copy, but it is already on the monthly……

    https://documentation.commvault.com/11.25/expert/13879_storage_policy_online_help.html

    Prevent multiple copies of job across selective copies

    This option is valid for time based selective copies.

    Select this option to prevent the same set of backups to be copied across different selective copies.

    For example:

    The storage policy has the following configured:

    • 1 daily copy (first full)

    • 1 weekly copy (first full – week begins on Monday)

    • 1 monthly copy (first full – month begins on 1st)

    Full backup Job1 runs on the first day of the month, which is Monday. This job qualifies for all the 3 configurations:

    • First full of the day

    • First full of the week

    • First full of the month

    If Prevent multiple copies of job across selective copies option is selected, then the job will go to the Monthly copy only. If the option is cleared, this job will be copied to all the selective copies.

    Note:

    If there are multiple copies with the same selective copy rules, then the qualifying job goes to the copy which was created first and therefore has the lowest copy ID.

     

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
    9
    Bit
    Forum|alt.badge.img+1

    Thanks very much for the detailed response Mike.  That’s a lot to digest and not sure I quite understand it all yet.  

     

    It sounds like I may not be able to do what I need to do.  Referring to the example provided, if a job qualifies for all 3 configurations and prevent multiple copies is checked, it will go to the monthly copy.  Which….I think it fine for most months, except for Feb, when I want that as a yearly copy.  What would the recommendation be then?  Should I just remove all ‘yearly’ configs and look into extended retentions?  Or is manually changing the retention after the fact required?  I’m trying to avoid any manual steps as they tend to get missed.  Is there some automatic way that I am missing?  Thanks again in advance.  I appreciate the input.  

     

    DAN

    Mike Struening
    Vaulter
    Forum|alt.badge.img+23

    In my experience, the easiest thing to do is set extended retention on the one copy for the FIRST backup of the time period.  This is because Extended Retention is VERY careful and cautious and will always consider the latest full to be the last of the time period (because as of this instant, it *IS*).

    If you set First of the time period, then once a backup runs, it ‘wins’ and you can easily plan accordingly.  Should use less tapes as well.

    Let me know if that helps.

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening

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