This topic provides an overview of the Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance backup feature provided by Cloud Backup, including the benefits, working mechanism, procedure, and billing of the feature.
Introduction
ECS instance backup is a Cloud Backup feature that allows you to manage the data on ECS instances based on disk snapshots. Cloud Backup provides automatic backup policies for ECS instances and a GUI console. In the Cloud Backup console, you can configure backup or restoration parameters. You can also perform restore, clone, and disaster recovery operations. Cloud Backup allows you to efficiently manage data on ECS instances. In addition, Cloud Backup allows you to protect data in advanced scenarios. For example, you can build testing and development environments by using ECS instances, and you can perform geo-disaster recovery at low costs.
Scenarios
Back up or restore ECS instances
Cloud Backup provides automatic backup policies to help you back up ECS instances. If a source ECS instance exists, you can restore the source ECS instance. If the source ECS instance is released, you can restore the ECS instance by cloning a new ECS instance.
Quickly build testing or development environments
Cloud Backup allows you to clone a new ECS instance from the recovery point of an ECS instance within a few minutes. You can use the new ECS instance as a testing or development environment.
Implement cross-zone or cross-region disaster recovery at low costs
The clone feature for ECS instance backup allows you to create ECS instances in different zones. After you enable cross-region replication for ECS instances, you can create another ECS instance based on one of the remote recovery points to resume your services.
Scope
ECS instance backup is used to back up only the data on disks, excluding the data that is accessed in external mounting mode.
Benefits
Protection of ECS instances
Cloud Backup allows you to manage backups based on ECS instances rather than disks. This facilitates and simplifies the protection of data on ECS instances. If a source ECS instance is released by mistake or the data is corrupted, you can restore and clone the instance from any backup.
Flexible backup policies
Cloud Backup provides global backup policies. You can add and delete protected ECS instances in batches. You can configure scheduled backup plans by day, week, month, and year, and specify the retention period of the backup data.
User-friendly wizard
The Cloud Backup console displays the ECS instances that are protected. You can view the information of existing backups. You can also restore and clone data based on selected backups.
Ready-to-use restore and clone operations
On-premises backups can be restored and cloned. Remote backups can be resumed for disaster recovery. You can use the instant clone feature to create an instance based on the current data in a relatively short period of time.
Low-cost cross-zone and cross-region disaster recovery
You can enable cross-region replication when you configure a backup policy for ECS instances. Then, you can create ECS instances based on remote backups to resume your services.
Immutable backup
You can enable the immutable backup feature in backup policies to prevent accidental or malicious deletion of backup data. The feature provides additional security for your backup data.
How it works
ECS instance backup allows you to perform data backup and disaster recovery for ECS instances by using snapshots, snapshot-consistent groups, and snapshot geo-replication.
When you back up an ECS instance, Cloud Backup automatically creates snapshots for all disks. This way, a group of snapshots is organized by Cloud Backup into a recovery point of the ECS instance. You can view these snapshots in the ECS console. If all disks on the ECS instance are Enterprise SSDs (ESSDs), Cloud Backup ensures data consistency of the ECS instance by creating snapshots based on the snapshot-consistency group. For non-ESSDs, Cloud Backup attempts to create a snapshot for each disk at the same time. However, the actual time when snapshots are created may vary slightly. Cloud Backup cannot guarantee that the snapshots of all disks are created at exactly the same time.
Cloud Backup implements the automatic orchestration of features such as snapshot lifecycle management, snapshot geo-replication, snapshot rollback, and disk creation. This ensures that Cloud Backup can provide advanced capabilities such as backup, restoration, cloning, and geo-disaster recovery for ECS instances.
Procedure
The following procedure shows how to back up ECS instances in the Cloud Backup console.
ECS instance backup is a backup orchestration service provided by Cloud Backup based on the disk snapshot capability. The first time you back up ECS instances, you must activate the snapshot service.
You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for the Cloud Backup clients that you use to back up ECS instances. The fees for the storage usage of ECS snapshots are included into your snapshot service bills. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
When you create a backup job for ECS instances, specify the backup mode, the retention period of backup data, and whether to enable the cross-region replication feature. You can enable the application-consistent backup feature.
NoteIf the region that you select supports backup policies, you can set a backup plan only by associating it with a backup policy. Cloud Backup periodically backs up ECS instances based on the backup policy.
To view the regions that support backup policies, click Policy Center in the left-side navigation pane of the Cloud Backup console. For more information about how to create a backup policy, see Create a backup policy.
After you create a backup plan, the first backup job performs a full backup and subsequent backup jobs perform incremental backups.
Restore or clone an ECS instance or disk
If an exception occurs on an ECS instance or disk, you can restore the ECS instance, clone the ECS instance, restore a disk, or clone a disk based on backup points and the time when the backup points are generated.
ImportantIf you clone an ECS instance or a disk, you are charged based on the billing methods and billable items of ECS. For more information, see Billable items and billing methods of ECS.
Billing
ECS instance backup is a backup orchestration service that is provided by Cloud Backup based on the ECS snapshot capability. You can purchase resource plans based on the number of ECS instances that you want to back up. You are charged based on the following billable items:
Cloud Backup clients for ECS instance backup
If you enable a backup policy for ECS instances, you are charged based on the number of ECS instances on which a Cloud Backup client is installed. For more information, see Pricing of Cloud Backup.
Snapshots
The fees for the snapshots that are generated by the ECS instance backup feature are included into the snapshot service bill. The fees include the following subitems: 1. The snapshot capacity fees incurred when ECS instances are backed up. 2. The snapshot capacity fees incurred when cross-region replication is enabled. 3. The cross-region traffic fees incurred when cross-region replication is enabled. For more information, see Pricing of Cloud Backup and Snapshots. Object Storage Service (OSS) resource plans can be used to offset only the snapshot capacity fees, not the cross-region traffic fees.
What to do next
Back up ECS instances. For more information, see Back up ECS instances.
Learn about the best practices of Cloud Backup. For more information, see Best Practices.