Synthetic Full Backup Considerations

When you submit a synthetic full backup job, keep in mind the following points:

• Synthetic full backup only supports r16 Windows Client Agents. It does not support Windows Client Agents before r16, database agents, or application agents. However, you can still submit a synthetic full backup job to back up mixed sources (including r16 Windows Client Agents, pre-r16 Windows Client Agents, database agents, or application agents). For the agents not supported by synthetic full backup, it uses the daily backup method you had previously specified.
• Synthetic full backup only supports disk-staging devices and deduplication devices. You can migrate synthetic full backup sessions to tape, cloud, and disk devices with D2D2T.
• Ensure that you define the Do full backup option on the Backup Manager Schedule tab for data assurance when you submit a synthetic full backup job.
• When you modify an existing synthetic full backup job, a traditional full backup runs the next day that a full backup is scheduled to run. To disable this behavior, modify the following registry key:
  1. Open the following key on the backup server:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ComputerAssociates\CA ARCserve Backup\Base\ASMgr

  2. Specify the following Value Name:

  (DWORD) SFBCheckedRealFull

  3. Specify the following Value:

  1

  4. The value 1 disables this behavior.

  Note: A traditional full backup job always runs when you make specific changes to the job. Specifically, you change the backup source, the synthetic schedule, the disk staging location, or the Encryption/Compression option. This approach helps to ensure that you can perform synthetic backups on the days synthetic backups are scheduled to run when you make these specific to the job.

• When you submit a synthetic full backup job, the Arcserve Backup user interface displays your 90-day detailed synthetic schedule for your reference. However, the detailed synthetic schedule that displays in the user interface may not be consistent with your actual schedule when you modify existing synthetic full backup jobs.
• When you schedule a synthetic full backup job, the Detailed SFB Schedule field displays the current date as the default start date. However, when you select the Run On date in the Submit Job screen, the synthetic full backup job is scheduled based on the day you specify.
• With synthetic full backup, you can schedule a synthetic full backup using a timeframe that is longer than a week. Using this setting, the default retention time (six days) of the media pool for a rotation scheme cannot prevent overwriting necessary data. Therefore, when you submit a D2D2T synthetic full backup job with a rotation scheme and a synthetic schedule of more than a week, verify that the retention time of the media pool is longer than the synthetic schedule, which will require more media.

• Note: To perform synthetic full backup jobs, you must install and license Arcserve Backup Agent for Open Files on the computers that you want to back up.