How GFS Backup to Tape Works

When Veeam Backup & Replication executes a GFS job, it performs the following operations:

1. At 00:00 of the day set in the GFS job schedule the GFS job starts and checks periodically if the primary job created a backup:

• If the primary job creates a full backup, the GFS job copies it.
• If the primary job creates an incremental backup, the GFS job synthesizes a virtual full backup.
• If no backup appears in 24 hours, the GFS job looks for the most recent restore point available. If it is a full backup, the GFS job copies it. If it is an increment, the GFS job uses it to synthesize a virtual full backup.

2. The GFS job determines the period: weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly, and writes the full backup to the corresponding media set.

Note the following:

• The GFS job copies only new restore points. If the primary job did not create a new point after the last GFS job run, the GFS job will not copy anything to tape. For example, if you want weekly backups in the tape GFS archive, make sure that the primary job runs at least once a week.
• When you link a primary job to a GFS job, the GFS job does not copy old restore points. The GFS job will copy only the restore point created on the day when the GFS job was linked to the primary job or new restore points created later.
• If the primary job creates more than one full backup in 24 hours, the tape job will copy only the first one.
• If the restore point is available but locked (for example, if the source job is a backup copy job), the GFS job will wait for this restore point to become available for up to 7 days. If the restore point is still locked after 7 days, the GFS job will use the most recent restore point that is not locked.
• If you stop the tape job manually, it will start again at 00:00 of the next scheduled day.
• If there is a technical problem, for example, the tape library is offline, or the backup server is down, the GFS job will not run. When the problem is fixed, the GFS job will archive two most recent missed full backups for each media set.
• If the GFS tape job was disabled manually for some period, it will skip all backups for this period after it is resumed.
• If the GFS job failed for some reason, it will try to restart every hour for 48 hours.