This topic provides an overview of the archiving feature of Cloud Backup, including the benefits, working mechanism, procedure, and billing of the feature.
Introduction
Archiving is a high-efficiency and low-cost data protection solution provided by Cloud Backup for on-premises NAS file systems, Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) file systems, and S3-Compatible Storage buckets. Cloud Backup supports common file storage protocols such as Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), and Server Message Block (SMB), and S3-Compatible Storage, as well as big data storage such as HDFS. Cloud Backup provides intelligent analysis capabilities to display data in multiple dimensions, formulate archive plans, and predict archive effects. Cloud Backup allows you to efficiently store a large number of files to an archive vault on the cloud. To archive data, you only need to perform a few operations in the Cloud Backup console. The archiving solution offers high performance and low costs. In the Cloud Backup console, you can query and retrieve archived files based on your business requirements.
Benefits
Low costs
Data is stored in archive vaults and cold archive vaults on Alibaba Cloud. The storage cost is extremely low.
Automated O&M
After you configure a policy, it is automatically executed. You do not need to perform O&M operations on archive vaults. Compared with traditional tape archiving solutions, Cloud Backup archive vaults save a lot of O&M investment.
Intelligent analysis
Cloud Backup provides intelligent analysis capabilities to display data in multiple dimensions, formulate archive plans, and predict archive effects.
Global retrieval
You can perform multidimensional fast queries by file path, file name, file size, date, and full text. You can quickly retrieve files.
How it works
You need to perform the following steps: 1. Install and activate the Cloud Backup client on one or more on-premises servers. 2. Log on to the Cloud Backup console to add a NAS, HDFS, or S3-Compatible Storage data source. 3. Use the installed Cloud Backup client to archive the specified folders and files on the NAS or HDFS file system or S3-Compatible Storage bucket.
When an archive plan is running, the Cloud Backup client group scans the specified folders to identify the files to be archived, and uploads incremental data to the cloud. Cloud Backup creates indexes for the metadata of files or folders that are archived to the cloud. You can use the global retrieval feature of the Cloud Backup console to quickly search for files in an archive vault.
Cloud Backup allows you to archive data to Alibaba Cloud over the Internet, virtual private networks (VPNs), or Express Connect circuits. If you archive data over the Internet, you must make sure that the server on which the Cloud Backup client is installed can access the Internet. You do not need to expose the IP address of the server to the Internet.
Procedure
The following section describes how to archive data in the Cloud Backup console.
You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for the rental and storage usage of archive vaults. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
Install the Cloud Backup client
After you install the Cloud Backup client on your on-premises server, you can archive data from the server.
You must add a data source to ensure that Cloud Backup can discover the on-premises NAS file system, HDFS file system, or S3-Compatible Storage bucket whose data you want to archive.
Archive data and Analyze a data source
When you create an archive plan, configure the archive vault, archive rules, archive interval, and archive path. Cloud Backup starts the archive plan and continuously archives data from the specified source. You can use the data analysis feature to obtain the statistics about a data source. Then, you can set archive filters based on the analysis results.
You can search for and retrieve files of a data source or an archive vault.
Billing
You are charged for the archiving feature of Cloud Backup based on the following billable items:
Rental of archive vaults
You can purchase archive vaults based on the amount of data that you want to archive. Each archive vault or cold archive vault contains a certain amount of free capacity. For more information, see Pricing.
Storage usage
You are charged based on the storage usage of the Cloud Backup archive vaults. The minimum billable size of the data stored in archive vaults and cold archive vaults is 1 MB. For a file whose size is less than 1 MB, you are charged based on 1 MB. For a file whose size is greater than or equal to 1 MB, you are charged based on the actual size. You can view the details of storage usage on the Overview page in the Cloud Backup console. For more information, see Pricing.
In addition, Cloud Backup charges the following fees based on specific configurations or operations:
Capacity fee for insufficient storage duration
You are charged for using archive vaults based on a 60-day storage duration. If the data stored for less than 60 days in an archive vault is deleted or overwritten, you are charged for 60 days, including the remaining duration. You are charged for using cold archive vaults based on a 180-day storage duration. If the data stored for less than 180 days in a cold archive vault is deleted or overwritten, you are charged for 180 days, including the remaining duration.
Data retrieval fee
You are charged for retrieving data from an archive vault to your on-premises computer based on the size of the retrieved data.
Outbound traffic fee
If you retrieve data to your on-premises computer over the Internet, you are charged for the outbound traffic.
What to do next
View answers to some frequently asked questions (FAQ). For more information, see On-premises backup FAQ.
Learn about the best practices of Cloud Backup. For more information, see Best Practices.