HP B6960-96035 - Manual (Page 258)

new, synthetic full backup. This can be repeated indefinitely, with no need to run a
full backup again.
In terms of restore speed, a synthetic full backup is equivalent to a conventional full
backup. The restore chain consists of only one element, so a restore is as quick and
simple as possible.
Synthetic backup benefits
Synthetic backup brings the following benefits:
• It eliminates the need for full backups. After the initial full backup, only incrementals
are performed, which significantly reduces the time needed for the backup.
• Consolidation of backed up objects is performed on the device server, putting
no stress on either the production servers or the network.
• A type of synthetic backup, called virtual full backup, is even more efficient. Virtual
full backup consolidates data using pointers, which eliminates unnecessary
duplication of data.
• A restore from a synthetic full backup is as fast as from a conventional full backup,
as there is no need to retrieve data from incremental backups. This eliminates the
reading of each incremental backup in the restore chain, and if tape devices are
used, also loading and unloading of several media and seeking for object versions.
How Data Protector synthetic backup works
Data Protector synthetic backup enables you to merge a full backup and any number
of incremental backups into a new, synthetic full backup.
To enable synthetic backup, the use of enhanced incremental backup is required.
Enhanced incremental backup must be turned on before the full backup and the
incremental backups are performed.
A synthetic full backup can be created from a full backup that is written to a disk or
tape device and incremental backups that are written to a disk-based device, a Data
Protector file library. The synthetic full backup can, again, be written to a disk or
tape device.
If all the backups, full and incremental, are written to the same file library that uses
distributed file media format, an even more efficient type of synthetic backup is
available, called virtual full backup. This solution uses pointers to consolidate data
rather than copy the data. As a result, the consolidation takes less time and avoids
unnecessary duplication of data.
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