If you need to retain backup data for a long period of time, you can use the automatic archiving feature to transfer recovery points from the Standard tier to the Archive tier. To enable the automatic archiving feature, you must configure the Days to Transfer to Archive Tier parameter. This feature helps you reduce data protection costs. This topic describes the automatic archiving feature of Cloud Backup, including the feature introduction, key benefits, limits, usage notes, working mechanism, procedure, and fees.
Feature introduction
The automatic archiving feature is a solution provided by Cloud Backup to store backup data for a long period of time at a low cost in compliance scenarios. If you need to retain backup data for a long period of time and the backup data is infrequently accessed, you can use the automatic archiving feature to transfer recovery points from the Standard tier to the Archive tier. This feature helps you reduce data protection costs.
Key benefits
Cost-efficient storage of archived data
Backup data is transferred from the Standard tier to the Archive tier for cost-efficient and long-term storage.
For more information, see Pricing.
Fully automated data transfer from the Standard tier to the Archive tier
After you enable the automatic archiving feature for a backup policy, Cloud Backup automatically transfers backup data from the Standard tier to the Archive tier based on the retention period that you have specified. No manual operation is required.
Easy-to-use data restoration
When you use a recovery point at the Archive tier to restore data, Cloud Backup provides an experience close to that of restoring data from a recovery point at the Standard tier. You do not need to wait for a long time to restore the data.
Limits
The automatic archiving feature supports the following data sources: Elastic Compute Service (ECS) files, on-premises files, Object Storage Service (OSS) objects, File Storage NAS (NAS) files, and on-premises NAS files. For more information about the regions that support the automatic archiving feature, see Features supported in each region.
Backup data must be retained at the Standard tier for at least 30 days before it can be transferred to the Archive tier. After backup data is transferred to the Archive tier, the data must be retained at the Archive tier for at least 60 days.
Usage notes
The automatic archiving feature is not suitable for cross-region backup scenarios.
Archive-tier data in a backup vault does not support zone-redundant storage (ZRS).
Archive-tier data in a backup vault does not support cross-region replication. Backup data in a mirror vault does not support the automatic archiving feature.
After the automatic archiving feature is enabled, the feature is only effective for newly generated backups.
After backup data is automatically archived, the recovery points at the Archive tier support only automatic expiration and cannot be manually deleted.
After backup data is automatically archived, you can use the recovery points at the Archive tier to restore data. However, you cannot transfer the recovery points from the Archive tier to the Standard tier.
Backup data can still be automatically archived even if immutable backup is enabled for the backup vault. You cannot manually delete the recovery points at either the Standard tier or the Archive tier.
The Keep At Least One Backup Version feature is effective only for the recovery points at the Standard tier. If only one backup version exists at the Standard tier, the backup data is not transferred to the Archive tier. Recovery points at the Archive tier are not protected by the Keep At Least One Backup Version feature, and automatically expire after the retention period ends.
Data at the Archive tier and data at the Standard tier are stored independently. After a recovery point is automatically transferred from the Standard tier to the Archive tier, you are independently charged for the storage usage at the Archive tier based on the size of the source data that is automatically archived.
How it works
The automatic archiving feature is seamlessly integrated with backup policies. You can transfer backup data from the Standard tier to the Archive tier without the need to deploy any services.
After you enable the automatic archiving feature by setting the Days to Transfer to Archive Tier parameter in a backup policy, the Cloud Backup backend server automatically transfers data at recovery points from the Standard tier to the Archive tier based on the data archiving time specified in the backup policy. The time required for data archiving depends on the amount of backup data.
The following figure shows that backup points 1, 2, and 3 are automatically transferred from the Standard tier to the Archive tier based on the specified archiving time. The calculation of billable data size at the Standard tier and the Archive tier is different. You are charged for Standard-tier storage based on the data that is deduplicated and compressed. For example, if the deduplication and compression ratio is 1:1, the billable data size is 30 GB (10 GB + 20 GB). You are charged for Archive-tier storage based on the size of the source data. Data size less than 1 MB is rounded up to 1 MB. In this example, the billable data size at the Archive tier is 120 GB (100 GB + 10 GB + 10 GB).
Cloud Backup archives full data in the first archiving job and archives incremental data in subsequent archiving jobs.
To enhance the robustness of backup data, the Archive tier does not depend on the data at the Standard tier. Historical data can be independently restored from the Archive tier. Therefore, full data is archived in the first archiving job. In each subsequent archiving job, only incremental data compared with the previous recovery point is archived and then a complete recovery point is synthesized.
As shown in the preceding figure, 100 GB of data at backup point 1 is transferred to the Archive tier, and only the changed and added 20 GB of data at backup point 2 is transferred to the Archive tier. No data at backup point 3 is transferred to the Archive tier.
The Archive tier does not depend on the data at the Standard tier. The data at the Archive tier is independently stored and billed.
When different recovery points of the same data source are transferred to the Archive tier, you are charged based on the size of the full source data that is automatically archived for the first time. In subsequent automatic archiving, Cloud Backup automatically identifies incremental data, and you are charged based on the size of the incremental data.
As shown in the preceding figure:
If automatic archiving is not performed, the billable data size at the Standard tier for backup points 1, 2, 3, and 4 is 140 GB (100 GB + 10 GB + 10 GB + 20 GB). The monthly fee based on the pay-as-you-go catalog price is USD 4.4618 (140 GB × USD 0.03187 per GB-month).
After backup points 1, 2, and 3 are automatically archived, the billable data size at the Standard tier is 30 GB (10 GB + 20 GB). The monthly fee based on the pay-as-you-go catalog price is USD 0.9561 (30 GB × USD 0.03187 per GB-month). The billable data size at the Archive tier is 120 GB (100 GB + 10 GB + 10 GB). The monthly fee is USD 0.54 (120 GB × USD 0.0045 per GB-month). The total monthly fee is USD 1.4961 (USD 0.9561 + USD 0.54).
Theoretically, the higher the data eviction rate, the more independent incremental data, and the more obvious the economic benefits of automatic archiving. In this example, the automatic archiving feature can save USD 2.9657 (USD 4.4618 - USD 1.4961) of your storage costs per month. If incremental data depends on a large amount of data or the backup data needs to be retained for a short period of time, the automatic archiving feature may not save storage costs. Therefore, when you use the automatic archiving feature, you must understand the characteristics of your business data and then comprehensively consider the price difference between Standard-tier and Archive-tier storage to configure the most cost-effective data protection solution.
The Archive tier does not depend on the data at the Standard tier. The data at the Archive tier can be independently restored.
When you use a recovery point at the Archive tier to restore data, Cloud Backup unfreezes and restores the data from the Archive tier.
Procedure
The following figure shows the procedure for backing up and automatically archiving data in the Cloud Backup console. The procedure for automatically archiving OSS backup data is used as an example.
You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for the storage usage of Cloud Backup. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
Create a backup policy. Configure the backup vault, backup content, backup cycle, and retention period. To enable the automatic archiving feature, you must specify the Days to Transfer to Archive Tier parameter. By default, backup data is stored in the Standard tier and then is automatically transferred to the Archive tier after the specified number of days. For more information about how to view the archiving status of a backup point, see View the archiving status of a backup point.
Create a backup plan and associate it with the backup policy
Cloud Backup starts the backup plan and continuously backs up the source data based on the backup policy.
If an exception occurs on a source file, you can create a restore job to restore the data source based on the file that has been backed up.
View the archiving status of a backup point
To check whether a backup point has been transferred to the Archive tier, you can click the backup point in the Backup History section to view the backup status.
If the backup status is Completed, the data is backed up and stored at the Standard tier.
If the backup status is Wait for Archiving, the backup data is waiting to be automatically transferred to the Archive tier.
If the backup status is Transferred to Archive Tier, the backup data has been transferred to the Archive tier.
The backup points generated for a data source are automatically transferred from the Standard tier to the Archive tier based on the backup plan specified in a backup policy only if you associate the backup policy with the data source and enable the Automatic Archiving feature.
Fees
When you use the automatic archiving feature, the following fees are incurred:
Fees for the usage of Archive-tier storage
You are charged for Standard-tier storage based on the data that is deduplicated and compressed. You are charged for Archive-tier storage based on the size of the source data that is transferred from the Standard tier to the Archive tier. When different recovery points of the same data source are transferred to the Archive tier, you are charged based on the size of the full source data that is automatically archived for the first time. In subsequent automatic archiving, Cloud Backup automatically identifies incremental data, and you are charged based on the size of the incremental data. The minimum billable size of the data stored at the Archive tier is 1 MB. For a source object or file whose size is less than or equal to 1 MB, you are charged based on 1 MB. For a source object or file whose size is greater than 1 MB, you are charged based on the actual size. You can view the size of the Archive-tier data in the backup vault on the Overview page in the Cloud Backup console.
For example, your OSS source data is 1024 2-MB objects and 2048 512-KB objects. After the backup data is automatically archived for the first time, the following formula is used to calculate the size of the Archive-tier data in the backup vault:
1024 × 2 MB + 2048 × 1 MB (512 KB is calculated as 1 MB) = 4 GBIf the 1024 2-MB objects are not changed, but the 2048 512-KB objects are changed in subsequent automatic archiving, the following formula is used to calculate the size of the incremental data added to the Archive tier:
2048 × 1 MB (512 KB is calculated as 1 MB) = 2 GBIn this case, the total data size at the Archive tier is 6 GB (4 GB + 2 GB).
For more information, see Pricing.
Fees for data restoration from the Archive tier
If you restore data from a recovery point at the Archive tier, you are charged based on the actual size of the restored data. The minimum billable size of the data stored at the Archive tier is 1 MB. For an object or file whose size is less than or equal to 1 MB, you are charged based on 1 MB. For an object or file whose size is greater than 1 MB, you are charged based on the actual size.
For more information, see Pricing.