This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Active Full Backup

In some cases, you need to regularly create a full backup. For example, your corporate backup policy may require that you create a full backup on weekend and run incremental backup on work days. To let you conform to these requirements, Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris lets you create active full backups.

When Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris performs active full backup, it produces a full backup file and adds this file to the backup chain.

The active full backup resets the backup chain. All incremental backup files use the latest active full backup file as a new starting point. A previously used full backup file and its subsequent incremental backup files remain on the disk. After the last incremental backup file created prior to the active full backup becomes outdated, Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris automatically deletes the previous backup chain. To learn more, see Retention Policy for Active Full Backups.

Active Full Backup

You can create active full backups manually or schedule a backup job to create active full backups periodically (on specific week days or specific day of a month). To learn more, see Creating Active Full Backups and Configuring Active Full Backup Schedule.

Active Full Backup Schedule

You can schedule a backup job to create active full backups periodically.

Active full backup schedule depends on the regular backup schedule. For every backup job with enabled backup schedule, Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris saves active full schedule settings to the crontab configuration file of the root account.

In case active full backup is scheduled on a week day, Veeam Agent modifies the crontab record associated with the regular schedule.

For example, the regular backup schedule is set to Monday and Tuesday at 15:00. Active full backup schedule is set to Friday. In this case, the crontab record for the regular backup schedule will contain information that the job must start on Monday, Tuesday and Friday at 15:00.

In case active full backup is scheduled on a day of the month, Veeam Agent creates a separate crontab record that instructs the backup job to run on this day at the same time as it must run upon the regular schedule.

Note that if the job is not scheduled to run automatically, Veeam Agent will not create active full backups automatically as well.

For information about how to configure job schedule, see Configuring Backup Schedule and Configuring Active Full Backup Schedule.

Retention Policy for Active Full Backups

To be able to restore data from a Veeam Agent backup, you need to have a full backup file and a chain of subsequent incremental backup files on the disk. If you delete a full backup file, the whole chain of incremental backup files will become useless. In a similar manner, if you delete any incremental backup file before the point to which you want to roll back, you won’t be able to restore data (since later incremental backup files depend on earlier incremental backup files).

For this reason, if you create an active full backup, in some days there will be more restore points on the disk than specified by retention policy settings. Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris will remove the full backup chain only after the last incremental backup file in the chain becomes outdated.

For example, the retention policy is set to 3 restore points. A full backup file is created on Sunday, incremental backup files are created on Monday and Tuesday, and an active full backup is created on Wednesday. Although the backup chain now contains 4 restore points, Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris will not delete the previous backup chain. Veeam Agent will wait for the next 2 incremental backup files to be created, and only then will delete the whole previous chain, which will happen on Friday. As a result, although the retention policy is set to 3 restore points, the actual number of backup files on the disk will be greater for some time.

Note that if the backup job is set up to create periodic active full backups, Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris will never transform the backup chain. Instead, Veeam Agent will always wait for at least one full backup file plus the necessary number of incremental backup files to be created. After that, Veeam Agent will delete the obsolete active full backup file and its dependent incremental backup files. In this example, Veeam Agent will delete the previous backup chain every Saturday. As a result, although the retention policy is set to 3 restore points, the actual number of backup files on the disk will be greater most of the time.

In contrary, in a situation where you manually create an active full backup once, Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris will treat the active full backup in the same way as a regular full backup. If some restore point becomes obsolete, Veeam Agent will re-build the full backup file to include in it data of the incremental backup file that follows the full backup file. After that, Veeam Agent will remove the earliest incremental backup file from the chain as redundant.