This topic provides an overview of the on-premises NAS backup feature of Cloud Backup, including the benefits, working principles, procedure, and billing of the feature.
Introduction
On-premises NAS backup is a high-efficiency and low-cost data protection solution provided by Cloud Backup for on-premises NAS file systems. Cloud Backup supports common file storage protocols such as Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), and Server Message Block (SMB). Cloud Backup provides advanced data protection capabilities such as multi-node concurrent scanning, storage API integration, and deduplication and compression. Cloud Backup allows you to efficiently back up a large number of on-premises NAS files to the cloud. To back up data, you only need to perform a few operations in the Cloud Backup console. The backup solution offers high performance and low costs. If a file in your on-premises NAS file system is accidentally deleted, you can restore data from Alibaba Cloud to ensure data security.
Benefits
Simple configurations
You can deploy lightweight backup clients on virtual machines or physical machines in an on-premises data center without specific hardware. You can configure scheduled backup plans in the Cloud Backup console.
High backup performance
Cloud Backup allows multiple clients to back up a NAS file system concurrently, which greatly improves the backup efficiency. For PowerScale (Isilon), a distributed storage solution of Dell EMC, Cloud Backup integrates storage-native APIs to greatly reduce the performance overhead caused by the backup client.
Deduplication and compression
The Cloud Backup client compresses and deduplicates the NAS data that you need to back up at the source end, minimizing the bandwidth of cloud backup and the storage space occupied by backup data on the cloud.
Immutable backup against accidental or malicious deletion
Cloud Backup provides the immutable backup feature based on backup vaults. Backup data cannot be deleted by any account or method before the configured retention period expires.
Geo-redundancy
If you need to back up data to a remote location, you can create a mirror vault for a backup vault to quickly protect critical data.
How it works
First, you must install and activate a Cloud Backup client on each physical machine or virtual machine. You must log on to the Cloud Backup console to add a NAS file system as the data source. Then, you can use the Cloud Backup client to back up specified files in the NAS file system.
When a backup job is running, the Cloud Backup client scans the specified NAS folders to identify the files to be backed up, compresses and deduplicates the source data, and then uploads incremental data to the cloud. If multiple clients are installed, you can back up NAS data in parallel to improve backup performance.
Cloud Backup uses an incremental-forever backup strategy. Except for the first full backup job, each subsequent backup job uploads only the data that has changed compared with the previous backup job. A complete full backup is synthesized on the cloud to minimize network and storage consumption.
When you delete a backup point, only the data slices exclusive to the backup point are deleted without affecting other backup points.
After a full backup point is deleted, subsequent data restoration is not affected. If you delete a full backup point, only the data slices exclusive to the backup point are deleted. Data slices referenced by other backup points are not deleted.
If you delete a backup point, incremental data generated after the backup point can still be backed up and restored. The incremental-forever backup strategy ensures that the first backup job performs a full backup and subsequent backup jobs perform incremental backups.
Cloud Backup allows you to back up data to Alibaba Cloud over the Internet, virtual private networks (VPNs), or Express Connect circuits. If you back up 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 procedure shows how to back up on-premises NAS files in the Cloud Backup console.
You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for the Cloud Backup client that you use to back up files and the storage usage of backup vaults. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.
Install the Cloud Backup client
A backup client is used to establish communication and control services between your on-premises server and Cloud Backup.
When you create a backup plan, configure the backup vault, source path, backup cycle, and retention period. Cloud Backup starts the backup plan and continuously backs up files from the specified NAS file system.
ImportantAfter you create a backup plan, the first backup job performs a full backup and subsequent backup jobs perform incremental backups.
If 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 on-premises NAS files 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.
Restore files to an on-premises NAS file system
If an exception occurs in an on-premises NAS file system, you can restore files to the source NAS file system or a new on-premises NAS file system based on the backup points that are created and the time when the backup points are created. You can view backed-up files at any time.
Billing
You are charged for the on-premises NAS backup feature of Cloud Backup based on the following billable items:
Storage usage fees. Cloud Backup provides two types of backup storage: locally redundant storage (LRS) and zone-redundant storage (ZRS). You are charged based on the storage usage of backup vaults. You can view the storage usage of backup vaults on the Overview page in the Cloud Backup console. For more information, see Pricing of Cloud Backup.
In addition, Cloud Backup charges the following fees based on specific configurations or operations:
Geo-redundancy fees
If you create a remote mirror vault to copy data from a backup vault in an Alibaba Cloud region to another region for geo-redundancy, you are charged for the storage capacity of the mirror vault and the cross-region replication traffic. The size of the mirror vault is the same as that of the source backup vault, and the pricing is the same.
Outbound traffic fees
If you retrieve data to an on-premises NAS file system over the Internet, you are charged for the outbound traffic.
Traffic fees are calculated based on the data volume.
What to do next
Learn about how to back up on-premises NAS files. For more information, see Back up files from an on-premises NAS file system.
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.