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Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Backup Cycles

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    Monthly, quarterly and yearly backup cycles use the same algorithms as the weekly backup cycle. When you define retention policy settings for these backup cycles, you specify how many backups you want to retain and define the week day on which the monthly, quarterly or yearly backup must be created.

    Veeam Backup & Replication repeats the monthly, quarterly or yearly backup cycle until the number of backups allowed by the retention policy is exceeded. After that, Veeam Backup & Replication removes the earliest full backup from the target backup repository to make room for the most recent monthly, quarterly or yearly backup.

    Concurrent Archive Full Schedule

    If you schedule a monthly, quarterly or yearly full backup on the same day when the weekly full backup is scheduled, Veeam Backup & Replication will create only one archive full backup — the weekly backup. The monthly, quarterly or yearly GFS backup will not be created.

    The created archive full backup will be marked as weekly and, at the same time, monthly, quarterly or yearly backup. In the Veeam Backup & Replication console, you will see all GFS flags assigned to the backup. In the file system, however, the file will be visible as having only one GFS flag — the flag of the highest GFS tier. For example, if you schedule weekly and yearly backup on the same day, the backup file will be marked as yearly in the file system.

    If the synchronization interval is less than 1 day, Veeam Backup & Replication creates the archive full backup during the synchronization interval when the weekly full backup is scheduled.

    For example, you have scheduled the weekly full backup at 10:00 AM on Sunday. The monthly full backup is also scheduled on Sunday. The synchronization interval is set to 3 hours starting at 12:00 AM. That is, synchronization intervals take place at 12:00 AM, 3:00 AM, 6:00 AM, 9:00 AM and so on.

    In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication will not create the monthly full backup during the first synchronization interval on Sunday — 12:00 to 3:00 AM. It will wait for the synchronization interval when the weekly full backup must be created — 9:00 AM to 12:00 AM. During this interval, Veeam Backup & Replication will create an archive full backup and assign the weekly and monthly flags to it.