To mitigate data loss risks from disasters, hardware failures, or accidental deletion, Cloud Backup protects SAP HANA databases on ECS instances by creating recovery points. These recovery points enable data restoration to the source instance or another instance in the same region, helping to ensure business continuity.
Prerequisites
Cloud Backup is activated. No charges are incurred for activating Cloud Backup. However, charges apply for the SAP HANA backup feature of Cloud Backup based on the following billable items:
SAP HANA backup software usage fee. A software usage fee is charged for each SAP HANA instance, regardless of whether the instance is deployed in a standalone or primary/secondary architecture.
Storage capacity fee. You are charged based on the storage space that is occupied by the deduplicated and compressed data.
For more information about pricing, see Pricing.
If you back up a database on an ECS instance, you must install Cloud Assistant Agent on the ECS instance.
The Cloud Backup client for ECS requires Cloud Assistant.
If you purchased the ECS instance that you want to back up before December 1, 2017, you must manually install Cloud Assistant Agent. For more information, see Install Cloud Assistant Agent.
If you purchased the ECS instance that you want to back up on or after December 1, 2017, Cloud Assistant Agent is pre-installed.
You have obtained the SYSTEM username and password for the SAP HANA instance.
The SAP HANA instance is registered and its nodes are verified. For more information, see Register an SAP HANA instance and Verify SAP HANA nodes.
Usage notes
Data restoration between instances is possible only if they are in the same region and use the same backup vault. To enable data restoration between instances, register them with the same backup vault.
Direct backup is supported only for SAP HANA instances on Alibaba Cloud ECS. While on-premises instances are not directly supported, a workaround is available: back up the database to local storage first, and then use Cloud Backup's file backup feature to protect the resulting backup files. For more information, see Back up on-premises files.
Cloud Backup uses the SAP HANA Backint interface to back up data. Backint supports multitenant database containers (MDCs) in SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 09 (revision 94) and later and SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 01 and later. Backint does not support single-container systems in SAP HANA 1.0.
Create a backup plan
Perform the following steps to create a backup plan:
Log on to the Cloud Backup console.
In the navigation pane on the left, choose .
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
On the SAP HANA Instances page, find the target instance and click Back Up in the Actions column.
In the Create Backup Plan panel, select the database to back up and click Next.
NoteDatabases that are stopped cannot be backed up.
On the Configure Plan tab, configure the parameters, and then click OK.
Parameter
Required
Description
Backup Policy
Yes
To immediately back up the database, select Right Now.
To periodically back up the database, select On Schedule.
Backup Type
Yes
Full: Performs a full backup on the selected database.
Incremental: backs up only the files that are new or modified since the last full or incremental backup.
Differential: backs up only the files that have been modified since the last full backup.
NoteOnly one backup type can be selected for a backup plan:
If both full and incremental backups are required, two separate backup plans must be configured: one for full backups and the other for incremental backups.
If you require both full and differential backups for the database, you must configure two backup plans: one for full backups and the other for differential backups.
Backup Prefix
No
A custom backup prefix can be specified. If you do not specify this parameter, the default option is used.
Plan Name
Yes (for scheduled backup)
Enter a name for the backup plan.
Start Time
Yes (for scheduled backup)
Select the time to start the backup. The time is accurate to the second.
ImportantDo not set the same start time for full, incremental, and differential backups. Otherwise, an unknown error may occur.
Backup Interval
Yes (for scheduled backup)
Select the backup frequency. The time is accurate to the hour. Data can be backed up hourly, daily, or weekly.
The backup plan is created.
Backup is successful
Backup plans run automatically at their scheduled times. The backup is complete when the Status of the backup job is Successful.
(Optional) Set the retention period
After you set a data retention period for SAP HANA backups, Cloud Backup automatically deletes the catalog records and data from expired Backint and file backups.
Deleted data cannot be recovered. Set the retention period with caution.
Backup vault replication
To mitigate risks to business continuity from regional disasters or account-level issues, Cloud Backup supports cross-region backup and cross-account replication for general backup vaults. Once configured, data is automatically replicated from the source vault to the replication target vault. This ensures data consistency and allows for on-demand, cross-region restores directly from the replication target vault.
For general backup vaults that store SAP HANA data, configure backup vault replication to enable cross-region or cross-account disaster recovery. In addition, SAP HANA backup supports enterprise-level features such as cross-account backup and immutable backup.
FAQ
How do I check the status and logs of the Cloud Backup client after I register an SAP HANA instance?
Can Cloud Backup back up an SAP HANA instance deployed in an on-premises data center?
Do I need to purchase other cloud storage products to back up SAP HANA?
Can I use the "SAP HANA Backup" feature of Cloud Backup for a single-container SAP HANA instance?
Can backups for different SAP HANA environments be stored in different backup vaults?
Does SAP HANA backup support cross-region or cross-account backup?
More operations
After a backup plan is created, operations such as canceling the plan or viewing the backup history are available.
Manage backup plans
The information and status of backup plans can be viewed and managed.
In the backup plan list, view the information and status of the backup plans.
In the Actions column for a backup plan, perform operations such as Edit, Run Now, Suspend Plan, Resume Plan, or Delete Plan. Deleting a backup plan stops future executions but retains all existing backups.
View or cancel backup jobs
On the Backup Jobs tab, view the status of immediate or scheduled backup jobs and cancel any backup job that is in progress.
View backup history
View the entire backup history.
On the SAP HANA Instances tab, find the target instance and click its name.
On the SAP HANA Instance page, click Backup History.
In the backup history list, find the backup job that you want to view and check its details.
Next step
References
For information about how to back up MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server databases that are deployed on ECS instances, see Back up a MySQL database, Back up an Oracle database, and Back up an SQL Server database. Before you back up a database, you must first register it in the Cloud Backup console.
For information about how to back up files from a local server to the cloud, see Back up on-premises files.
Cloud Backup provides resource plans for various backup scenarios. These plans offer discounts to help you minimize your costs. For more information, see Purchase resource plans.